


Will the Lights On

by nikkiRA



Series: WTLO - Human AU Universe [3]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Will's POV, back by popular demand, i can't fucking believe i'm doing this again, slim shady voice: guess who's back back back, this title started out as a joke but i don't even care i'm keeping it for now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-05-31 14:47:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 50,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6474538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikkiRA/pseuds/nikkiRA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will's first (and last) college one night stand is turning his whole world upside down. For one, it was with a guy, something totally new to Will. For another, it wasn't with a very nice guy. And now Will keeps seeing him everywhere, and he can't get him out of his head, despite the fact that his bedmate seems less than friendly. Cecil and Lou Ellen are having the time of their lives, but Will is just confused. Why can't he stop thinking about this guy? Nico di Angelo has warning signs flashing all around him, but Will can't seem to stay anyway. Maybe it's fate. Whatever it is, Lou Ellen has fifty bucks riding on the fact that it happens by Thanksgiving. </p><p>*this is the continuation of a story I have written called 'With the Lights On' from Will's POV, however it can be read as a standalone as well*</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sexual Crisis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao i can't believe i'm doing this but ok  
> as some of you know i posted this first chapter on tumblr first because i wanted to get a feel for the response and if people would still be interested in this universe and the verdict seemed to be that everyone wanted me to publish this so here we fucking go, if you're like 'omg i wish she would stop posting about wtlo' blame everyone else ok i checked with them first
> 
> I will probably change this title at some point because it is so fucking stupid but I'm weirdly attached to it now
> 
> if you are new welcome! you don't have to have read the original to understand this it can be read alone

Will Solace wakes up to the first light of the sun in someone else’s bed. There are vague memories flitting through his brain and a horrible, horrible headache. His mouth is incredibly dry. He is naked.

He is going to _kill_ Lou Ellen.

He shifts quietly to look at the other body in the bed and feels almost like he had just gotten hit by a truck.

It was a _guy._

Once Will gets over this initial shock he can’t help but pat himself on the back. The first time he had ever done anything with a man and Wil had managed to score a really attractive one. He takes advantage of the fact that his partner is sleeping to study him. Olive skin, hair maybe just a little too long. Will remembers that he was thin, and although they are closed now, he can remember dark, expressive eyes. His eyes rake over the stranger’s lips. He can remember kissing them.

He isn’t entirely sure what had happened. It was easy enough to extrapolate, based on the strange bedroom and their shared nakedness. What he isn’t sure about is how far they had gotten. He has fuzzy memories of a dick in his mouth, an entirely new experience that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. He can’t imagine he would have gone any further than that, but if he was drunk enough to pick up a guy who the hell knows what he had done.

On top of that very intimidating memory blank, there is also the issue that Will can’t remember this guy’s name.

He slips quietly out of the bed and starts to find his clothes. He pulls on his underwear, which are crumpled in his jeans, before pulling those on after. He needs a shower more than he has ever needed anything. He can’t quite locate his shirt, but he finds his socks. He is hopping rather ungracefully on one foot, trying to pull his sock on, when there is movement from the bed as the stranger shifts and opens his eyes. He very quickly locates Will, who falls rather embarrassingly against the wall.

“Er,” he says. His voice sounds strange. Not quite his. The stranger’s eyes are dark and beautiful and distracting and the full weight of what had happened is finally hitting him. “Sorry. I was hoping to get out of here without waking you.”

There is a strange pause, as if he hadn’t heard Will speak, before saying, “Uh. That’s all right. Can you just close the blinds before you go?”

Will swallows but does as he is asked, plunging the room into darkness. His partner rolls over as if to go back to sleep, but Will finds he can’t quite move his feet. The stranger glances back at him.

“Did you lose something?” This comes out slightly harsh, but his voice is thick with sleep and if he has even half the headache that Will does he isn’t going to hold it against him. Will rocks awkwardly on the balls on his feet.

“Um. No.” His voice still has that strange feel to it, like it’s not his. It is unnerving.

The stranger sits up with an irritated grunt, but Will is more preoccupied with his bare chest. “Then why are you still here?”

“I just… I’ve never done this before. I don’t really know what to do.” Do they exchange information? Numbers? Should Will be able to remember his name?

“Oh. Generally you leave.”

Will is getting the distinct impression that this guy is not a morning person. He chooses to believe that instead of just calling him rude.

“Just like that? No… exchanging of numbers? No goodbyes or… I don’t know, thank yous?”

The stranger smirks, and Will’s mouth physically falls open.

“Well, if you’re that insistent, thank you for the stellar blow job last night.”

Will can literally feel himself turning red. “So that’s really it?” He doesn’t know why he keeps asking questions. He should leave. But something is keeping him rooted.

“Well, you can send me Christmas cards if you’d like, but I can’t promise you’ll get one in return.”

“Oh. All right. Bye, I guess.”

In response to this the stranger flops back down, and Will finds his shirt, makes sure he has all his things, and then walks away from his first – and likely only – one night stand.

He closes the door behind him and stops in his tracks.

This was a _really nice apartment._ Like. Really nice. Too nice. Way too nice for a college student. Maybe he was rich. Or it was drug money. Maybe he was in the Italian mafia. Or maybe Will had just given his first blow job to a secret prince, or something.

“Hello.”

He almost jumps out of his skin. There’s a person in the kitchen, dressed in running gear. He is tall and blond. He kind of reminds Will of Captain America. He is looking at Will in amusement, but no real surprise, which makes Will think that he’s probably not the first person to walk out of that door after an anonymous night.

“Hi,” he says awkwardly. This is the worst day of his goddamn life. This was mortifying.

_He was going to kill Lou Ellen._

“Front door is over there,” the roommate says, gesturing with his head, but he doesn’t say it meanly. More like he recognizes how out of his element Will is and wants to help out.

Will decides he likes nameless roommate #2.

“Right. Uh. Thanks.” He all but runs to the door and throws it open. He turns around at the last minute.

“Bye,” he says hesitantly. Nameless roommate #2 smiles and waves lazily at him, and Will hurries out.

* * *

When he gets outside he leans against the side of the building and breathes deeply. Then he takes his phone out of his pocket and calls Lou Ellen.

She answers on the second ring.

“Will! I thought you were dead.”

“You seem real torn up about it.”

“I’m too hungover to mourn. So how was your night, stud muffin?”

“Do not start with me, Lou, just take my effing car and come get me.”

He hears laughing and muffled conversation, because of course she’s with Cecil. Why wouldn’t she be.

“Where are you?”

“I am…” he looks around, trying to locate a street name, and is surprised when he sees that the surroundings are a little familiar. “I’m near my work, I think.” He takes a few more steps. “Yeah, I’m near Apollo’s. Come get me there.”

“I know there was a please in there.”

“Come get me and I’ll think about not brutally murdering you.”

“You’re a very violent young man.”

“Lou Ellen!”

“All right, all right. I’ll be there soon.”

Will hangs up the phone and swears. He walks the rest of the way to his work, debates going in to see people, and then decides he really doesn’t want to have to explain why he was there. He takes a seat on the curb of the parking lot instead and tries to work through blurry memories.

The Stoll’s. Of course. It was always the Stoll’s. There was a lot of alcohol, he can remember that. He must have drank half the Hudson River’s worth of booze. He can distinctly recall Lou Ellen egging him on.

And then there was small, dark, and handsome. Will can remember him. His smirk was engrained in Will’s head, and he thinks he was a good kisser, and Will definitely, totally blew him, but he can’t remember his name.

He is wracking his brain so hard it is almost painful when Lou Ellen and Cecil pull up. He walks over to the passenger side, but Cecil just gives him a look.

“This is _my car,”_ he says. Cecil just shrugs.

“Don’t be such a slut next time.”

Will groans rather loudly and slides into the back.

“Your check engine light is on,” Lou Ellen tells him cheerfully. Will considers throwing himself off a bridge.

“Of course it is,” he mutters.

“So,” Lou Ellen says, glancing at him in the rear-view mirror. “How was your night.”

“Bite a dick.”

“So vulgar. Was she hideous, then?”

There is a very uncomfortable feeling in his stomach. “Excuse me?”

“Is that why you’re so miserable? Your first one night stand and you picked up an ugly girl?”

“How much did you have to drink last night?”

“I believe I made a move on Cecil.”

“She did,” Cecil supplies.

Yeah, that bridge sounds great.

“Well?”

Will covers his face with his hands. “It wasn’t a girl,” he mutters.

The car screeches to a halt. There is honking behind them.

“Lou!” He shouts, momentarily forgetting his embarrassment. “My brakes cannot take that!”

The car starts again, but Lou keeps giving him looks in the mirror, and he thinks he might have actually killed Cecil.

“Start over, Solace,” she commands.

“There’s nothing else to say!” This was the longest car ride on the face of the earth. There’s no way it took this long to get to the dorms. Lou was probably driving slowly on purpose, that bitch.

“You fucked a dude!” Cecil exclaims helpfully. Will scoffs, trying to sound more in control of the situation than he really is.

“I didn’t fuck him, Cecil, God.”

“So was _he_ ugly, then?”

“No one was ugly! I can’t believe you don’t remember, Lou, you were the one who told me to make a move.”

“Oh, really? He must be hot then, I have great taste in men.”

“Says the lesbian who tried to sleep with Cecil,” he mutters.

“High school was a bad time for everyone, Will.”

“I’m talking about last night.”

“Cecil has very feminine features. And I cannot be held responsible for my actions when I’m drunk.”

“Yeah, and I’m a great pick, thank you.”

“We’re getting off topic,” Lou says commandingly as Will opens his mouth to dispute Cecil’s claim with almost ten years of counter-evidence. “We’re talking about Will’s First Gay Experience™,” she says, actually pronouncing the ™. They were capital letters, too. Will can just tell. Lou liked capital letters.

“We don’t have to talk about anything,” Will says sullenly as Lou parks. She locks the doors ominously before Will can get out and he decides not to mention that he can unlock his own door. She turns around to look at him.

“Yes, we do. Tell us what happened.” Cecil turns, too, so that Will kind of feels like he’s being forced to explain something to his parents.

“What exactly do you want me to say? I don’t remember most of it.”

“What was his name?”

“I don’t remember,” he says sheepishly. Cecil makes a noise under his breath that sounds suspiciously like ‘slut.’

“I’ve been calling him small dark and handsome in my head. I remember he was short.”

“SDH. Sure.”

“There isn’t anything else to say. I’m not giving you all the gritty details.” _Mostly because I can’t remember them._

“You should go to the STD clinic, dude,” Cecil says, and Will feels a spike of anxiety run through him. Christ, what if he had an STD? He probably had an STD. That’s just how life worked. His check engine light is on and he definitely had an STD.

“I want to die,” he mutters. “I want to die and be dead and never have to deal with any of this ever again.”

“Can I have your car?” Cecil asks.

Will gets out.

* * *

That night Will puts away his work and crawls into bed. Tomorrow he’ll have to take the car in and head to the STD clinic to get checked. He’s happy he got paid on Friday.

He listens to Cecil’s soft snoring and finds himself wondering if SDH snores. It’s a strange line of thought. It shouldn’t matter. He’s never going to see him again. He isn’t even entirely sure if he liked him. Sure, it had been early, but Will still thinks that you should be a little nicer to someone who had your dick in their mouth.

Still, it seems a little strange that the first time he had ever done anything with a guy and he was never going to see him again. Such a drastic change in his life should be more… fleshed out. Something a little more substantial than a blow job and a goodbye.

Will eventually falls asleep to thoughts of dark eyes and a smirk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't have as much of this written so updates will be spaced out more especially since i have school/work
> 
> once again my tumblr is @piedpipermclean hmu if you wanna talk


	2. Code Misfires

When Will parks at the garage and heads into the office, Bruce is already shaking his head.

“Tell me you’re here just to see my pretty face,” he says. Will puts his keys on the desk.

“The check engine light is on,” he says. Bruce keeps shaking his head. It’s getting kind of ridiculous. He’s going to get a headache.

“She’s a succubus, kid. There’s a hole in your wallet that’s leading right to that car. And this is your mechanic telling you that, kid. That’s gotta mean something.”

Will resists the urge to roll his eyes. He liked Bruce. He was a smart guy and he usually gave Will some kind of discount. And he was probably right, to be fair. Will’s car has turned into a money pit, and if he had scrapped his car ages ago he probably would have saved enough money by now to buy a new car. But he hadn’t. And Will needed a car.

“Yeah, I know,” he says, trying not to sound too annoyed. “But I need a car.”

Bruce purses his lips but grabs Will’s keys anyway.

“Do you think you’ll be able to have this done by later today?”

Bruce shrugs. “Depends on what the problem is, kid. But I’ll do my best.” Bruce gives him a loose salute and disappears into the back.

* * *

 Will hops on the bus that sends him back to campus and then heads to the STD clinic. He had never been there before. It was a nice enough place, really. Nice plants. Clean. The nurse is a nice older lady named Laverne that takes his name and smiles warmly at him. He doesn’t feel at all judged, which is nice.

He turns around to find a seat and sees a familiar dark head of hair shoved in a book. His heart starts up a sped up rhythm in his chest.

He should walk away. Definitely. Leave the past in the past. The only thing that could come from this was an awkward, painful conversation.

And yet here he is. Standing in front of SDH who was, still, very small, dark and handsome.

“Hi,” he says.

SDH sighs, as if Will is some great inconvenience. “Hi.”

Will hadn’t thought past this part of the conversation. He looks around, searching his mind for some kind of appropriate topic of conversation and eventually settles, mortifyingly, on, “Well, uh. I’m clean!”

Great. Perfect. Where was that bridge?

SDH stares at him incredulously. Will can’t say he blames him. “Okay.” He draws the word out slowly. “Thank you. I’m still going to check with the doctor.”

Will sits down, the fear of STDs once again on him, since SDH doesn’t seem to be in much of a rush to deny that he has any. “Are you? Like –”

“I don’t have any STDs,” he says, and there is a hint of a smirk as he starts texting, fingers flying. They are long and thin. Will finds he can’t stop staring at them.

Will tries to make small talk, but he finds that it is surprisingly difficult to hold a normal conversation with someone you sort of slept with, especially when that someone is hunched over their phone and keeps making annoyed faces at it. Will knows it probably isn’t fair to make judgements so early about someone he hardly knows, but honestly SDH doesn’t really seem like Will’s type.

And yet for some reason Will finds he can’t stop staring at those fingers.

After a particularly angry outburst Will decides he can’t ignore this any longer and says, “Are you all right?”

SDH looks up at Will with eyes dark with irritation. They are probably the most beautiful eyes Will has ever seen. He is fascinated by them.

“Yeah. Fourteen years of my goddamn life I went without having friends and the first one I decide to get turns out to be the most annoying asshole on the planet. Figures.”

He turns back to his phone and Will is left to ponder that information, although if he’s being honest he can see why someone like SDH might have gone awhile without meeting people.

“You didn’t have friends until you were fourteen?” Honestly, he isn’t a nosy person. Normally. But he dares anyone to hear that sentence and not get curious.

SDH glares at him, which Will probably deserves. ‘Yes. No. It’s – it’s complicated.”

“Okay. I guess it’s not really my business, is it?”

“Not in the least.”

Will leans back. He can’t believe he slept with this guy. He’s still having a little bit of trouble dealing with the fact that he _slept_ with a _guy,_ but especially with _this_ guy.

“Di Angelo,” a nurse calls, and SDH stands up. He takes a few steps before presumably remembering how to be a human being and turning back.

“Bye, I guess.”

_Bye, I guess._ Will’s loins were quivering with desire.

(That was supposed to be sarcastic, but the effect is ruined by the fact that goddamnit, he still finds this guy super attractive.)

“Angel,” he says. He’s not sure why he said it. Probably because God hates him and he can’t remember how to close his mouth.

“What?”

Will can’t help but grin, despite everything, because he feels like he has the upper hand for once.

“That’s what your name means. Angel.” And Cecil said grade nine Italian would never do him any good.

SDH gives him another incredulous look. “I know,” he says. “I’m Italian.” And fuck, if that isn’t the hottest fucking thing he’s ever heard.

He watches SDH walk away, feeling more confused than ever.

* * *

“You have a total thing for this dude.”

“This is why I never tell you guys anything.”

“Don’t be so touchy,” Cecil says, at the same time Lou says, “There’s no use denying it. You know. We know. Fuck, he probably knows.”

“He can’t know, because there is nothing _to_ know.”

“You spoke the language of love to him, Will.”

“I translated one word and besides, I’m pretty sure French is the language of love.”

“French and Italian are very similar.”

“Is that your opinion as an expert linguist?” He asks with a laugh. Cecil flips him off.

“I think its fate.”

“You don’t believe in fate, Lou.”

“I believe in anything that’s going to get you laid,” she says. Will rolls his eyes.

“Your concern is touching, truly. But I’m not using this guy as a rebound.”

“Then what are you using him as?”

“I’m not using him for anything.”

“At least we know he’s clean.”

“How come we never talk about your sex lives in such detail?”

“Because I am a lady and Cecil doesn’t have sex.”

Will blows out a puff of air. “None of this matters. I had my Big Gay Experience –”

“TM,” Lou Ellen adds.

“And I am STD free, and it’s over.”

Lou Ellen and Cecil both look like it is definitely not over when Will’s phone starts ringing.

“Hello.”

“Kid! Bruce here.”

Will’s heart starts beating faster. This could either be bad or – well, very bad.

“Hi. What’s the prognosis?”

“Good news, Willie.” Will grimaces. The only thing worse than being called William was being called Willie, but of all the people he was willing to piss off, his mechanic was not one of them. “It was just a code misfire.”

That means absolutely nothing to Will. “O-kay. Pretend for a second that I don’t speak car. What does that mean?”

Bruce chuckles. “Come down here to get her and I’ll explain.”

He hangs up, not at all upset about the interruption. “I have to go get my car.”

“What’s wrong with the Shitmobile now?”

“Yeah, you insult it now, but if I recall you were singing its praises that time you accidentally ended up at a Celine Dion concert.”

“I thought we were talking about Will,” Cecil says sullenly. Lou Ellen pats him on the back comfortingly.

“Anyway. I’ll see you guys later.”

“Best of luck,” Lou Ellen says. Cecil was still upset that he had brought up the Celine Dion Tragedy of 2011 and doesn't say anything.

Will heads out, praying this doesn’t break his wallet.

* * *

“Willie! Welcome back.”

He forces a smile. “So what’s going on?”

“Code misfire. Basically just means the code’s there, but I couldn’t find anything wrong with the engine. This stuff happens, especially in a car as old as yours.”

“So there was nothing wrong?”

“Exactly.”

Will feels like he could fly. “Thank God. So how much? For labour, and stuff?”

“Be about twenty.”

Will stops from where he was rummaging in his pocket for his wallet. “What does it actually cost?”

“I told you kid. Twenty. Code misfires are no big thing.”

While this may be true, Will has gone to the mechanic enough to know that nothing there cost twenty dollars. Except maybe a drink from the machine. Bruce had given him discounts before, but nothing like this.

“Bruce –”

“What do you want from me? I don’t make the rules.”

Will stares pointedly at the sign on the wall that says “Bruce’s Mechanics.” Bruce smiles crookedly at him.

“Twenty bucks, kid.”

Here’s the thing about pity – sure, being pitied can feel like shit, but Will had learned long ago that pride doesn’t pay any bills, and pride won’t get you through college, and pride won’t fix your car. So Will gives Bruce a twenty dollar bill and a smile he hopes conveys his thankfulness before getting back in the car and driving away.

* * *

Once again, for some reason, when Will gets into bed that night and closes his eyes, he is once again thinking of SDH. Di Angelo, he reminds himself. That was his name.

It was strange, because he didn’t seem all that… nice. The guy had warning signs flashing all around him.

And yet for some reason he finds that he can’t stop thinking about him. Especially those fingers. Will wasn’t generally fascinated by hands, but for some reason he couldn’t get those fingers out of his head.

Will thinks about the name he had heard at the clinic. Di Angelo. He tries to place a first name to that, tries to restart his mind into remembering, but he keeps drawing a blank.

He tells himself that it’s totally normal to be thinking of him this much. After all, this was a big change in Will’s life. It’s totally normal to think about the man he had shared it with. The man who had caused it, really.

This time he falls asleep with his head filled with images of di Angelo’s fingers and tries to convince himself that he wasn’t crazy, that this was a totally normal thing to obsess over.

There is no way he was telling Lou Ellen or Cecil about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes the nurse at the STD clinic is Laverne from Scrubs okay
> 
> also yes the Celine Dion Tragedy is from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days


	3. Thursdays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have an exam in three hours lmao what am i doing

Will hates Thursdays.

Thursdays are, objectively, definitely the worst days ever. Close enough to Friday to get your hopes up. Usually cloudy. Not to mention he had class from 9:00 until 4:00 with only one half hour break in between, and he was almost always on the dinner shift after.

Seriously. Thursdays were the worst.

This particular Thursday starts with a stubbed toe, a shout of pain, and Cecil telling him to shut the fuck up, Will, not everyone had class at ungodly hours. He got all the way to his car before realizing he didn’t have his keys, and all the way back to his room before he realized he lived on campus and didn’t _need_ his car.

Yeah. It was that kind of day.

Another thing about Thursdays – if you’re ever going to have a surprise pop quiz, it’s going to be on a Thursday. That’s just how the world worked.

By the time he gets to work, he’s almost relieved to be there. There were no surprise pop quizzes at work. Sure, he had to smile nonstop for six hours, but he could handle that.

That is until he looks over to see di Angelo at one of his tables.

Great. Peachy. This was just a like a Thursday. Part of him wants to ask Austin to take that table, but there is no way in hell he’s explaining why.

When he reaches the table di Angelo looks up and then his mouth falls open. “Uh.”

Honestly, what was he doing here? Well, okay, that was a stupid question, obviously he was out for dinner, but why did the world hate him? Will can’t get the dude out of his fucking head and here he is once again. Someone up there was laughing at him.

“Hi,” he says, holding out the menus. He is a professional. He could handle this. It was just like if one of his ex-girlfriends had sat down in his section.

Bad example. He would switch off with Austin. God, he sleeps with one dude and his whole life turns upside down.

Di Angelo coughs. “Yeah,” is his answer. He probably thinks Will is stalking him. Which he totally isn’t.

There is a very pretty girl sitting across from di Angelo who is looking between the two of them with her eyebrows scrunched. She can’t be any more than eighteen.

“Do you know one another?” She asks, which Will thinks is kind of a stupid question, because it seems pretty obvious from this weird interaction that they’ve met before. Will is just about to tell her they met at a party, light on the details, when di Angelo butts in.

“Not really. I guess we just recognize each other from around campus.”

Here’s the thing: Will knows when people are trying to hide things. And he has pretty good instincts as to why they might be hiding things. Those instincts were born out of necessity during his senior year of high school, when Will came back from Christmas vacation and found out that everyone and their mother had caught his girlfriend fucking the captain of the baseball team underneath the bleachers.

Will’s first thought was, _how cliché._ His second thought consisted mostly of crying.

So he thinks he sums up the situation pretty well. He can tell from the way the two are looking at each other that they have history. He can tell from the almost sheepish expression on di Angelo’s face that he had done something he wasn’t supposed to. The girl is sitting back with her arms crossed, as if she already knows. And di Angelo didn’t seem to want her to know they had met at a party.

That all pretty much led to one thing, and that thing was cheating. From the looks of it, probably not the first time, either.

Will is _furious._ He can still remember very clearly that awful feeling in his stomach when he had found out in high school and the awful insecurity that had followed for ages after, the recurring mantra of _I’m not good enough._ And it’s not any better on this side, either. He knows exactly how it felt, and he is horrified at the thought that he had played a part, unknowingly or not, in doing that to someone else.

But he was at _work._

He should have asked Austin to take this table.

“Yeah. Right. Anyway. Drinks?”

Every time he returns to the table he glares at di Angelo. It’s all he can do, and even that would get him in massive shit if his boss saw. He probably isn’t getting any tip from this table, but that’s okay. He didn’t want their money.

(Pride, it appeared, extended to cheating, even if it didn’t quite reach his car.)

At one point di Angelo gets up and heads towards the bathroom, and Will’s anger is propelling him forward before he is even aware.

“Were you cheating?”

(How not to be a professional, by Will Solace.)

Di Angelo looks at him funny. “I have to wash my hands.”

Evasion. Classic tactic.

“I mean with me. Were you cheating? Is that why you didn’t want to say? Was that your girlfriend?”

His sentences are completely choppy and almost nonsensical, but di Angelo _laughs_ at this, which infuriates Will so much he is about to rip into this guy, job be damned, when he says, “Are you serious? That was my _sister._ I didn’t want to say how I knew you because who the fuck just volunteers, ‘oh yeah, I totally fucked this dude the other night, also I’ll have a Caesar salad?’ Besides, my sister doesn’t like my… nighttime activities.” Wow, that was lame phrasing.

Di Angelo crosses his arms, and Will is feeling more and more like an idiot as the seconds tick by. “Do you normally introduce people as ‘this one guy I had sex with one night’?”

Will can feel himself heating up in embarrassment. He was an idiot, honestly. This was such a Thursday thing to do.

“I’m sorry. I told you I had never done this before. I just… I can’t stand cheating.”

“It’s a good thing I wasn’t cheating then, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry –”

Di Angelo holds up his hands. It’s fine. Can I wash my hands now?”

Will nods, and such a weight is lifted off his shoulders that he grins widely.

Before he enters the bathroom di Angelo turns back. “You didn’t spit in my food, did you?”

Will laughs. “Please. I’m a professional, di Angelo.”

Di Angelo’s face turns the barest hint of red at his name, and Will finds it embarrassingly endearing.

When he has to bring their food Will tries to smile extra wide to try and make up for some of the glaring, and also to maybe try and salvage some of his tip. He notices that di Angelo’s sister is staring at him, not in any mean way or anything, but in a way that seems like she can see into Will’s soul, which is worse. “Is there anything I can get you?” He asks her, but she shakes her head and smiles.

“No. Sorry.”

Now that he knows they are siblings it is easier to that they are related. Once you got past the obvious differences you could see that they had the same nose, same aristocratic features that could be almost haughty if they allowed them to be. He wonders if di Angelo’s smile is as nice as his sister’s. He wonders if he’s ever going to get to see it.

_Wow, cool it, Will._ One _night stand. One. Uno. Stop thinking about this dude so much._                                                                               

Which, he reflects, might be easier if he stopped showing up everywhere.

After they seem to be mostly done Austin comes up to him and says “birthday” in a voice that would be better suited for something like “waterboarding.”

Will also resists the urge to groan. “For who?”

“The one sitting beside that really pretty girl. Frank. He’s her boyfriend.”

His life would be so much simpler, he thinks, if people would just tell him these things.

He tries not to look at di Angelo while he is singing, because they are supposed to be focused on the one with the birthday, but he can’t help but notice the slight blush that spreads across his cheeks when he sees Will singing. Will decides he likes making him blush.

When he goes to their bill he is pleasantly surprised to see a 25% tip.

There is a winky face after that, though. Will doesn’t really know what to make of that.

* * *

When he gets home he collapses onto his bed with his face buried in his pillow.

“Long day?” Cecil asks. Will groans.

“I hate Thursdays.”

Cecil laughs lightly. “All right Garfield.”

“That was Mondays.”

Something lands beside his head. “I got you Chipotle.”

Will grabs the bag and tears into it. “I’m in love with you,” he says around a mouthful. Cecil snorts.

“You sleep with one guy and suddenly you’re gay as a toaster.”

“Are toasters gay?”

“I don’t know. I forget how that saying ends.”

“Definitely not with toasters.”

Cecil Watches him devour his burrito that same way you might watch feeding at the zoo – fascination with a hint of disgust – before saying, “Lou Ellen and I have a bet.”

Will rolls his eyes. “Can you two stop betting on me?”

“She thinks you and this di Angelo dude are gonna start dating by Thanksgiving.”

“And you’re sane enough to bet that I’m never going to speak to him again?”

“No, I just don’t think it will be until next semester.”

Will throws the crumpled up wrapper at Cecil, who just laughs infuriatingly. Will debates telling him that di Angelo had been at his work and decides not to. That will only egg them on.

Honestly, Will is more confused than ever. He still isn’t sure how he feels about this guy. He wishes he could remember what had happened that night when they hooked up. Maybe he would be able to work out his feelings about the situation if he knew what had attracted him in the first place.

Well, okay, he should reword that. He knows what must have attracted him to di Angelo. The eyes and the fingers were answer enough. What he would really like to know is what had attracted di Angelo to _him._ It didn’t really seem like di Angelo even remotely liked him. Will doesn’t expect them to become friends, or anything, but considering they had slept together, so to speak, he doesn’t think he’s being unreasonable to expect something a little more than thinly veiled contempt. He doesn’t think there’s anything particularly worrisome about how often Will’s thoughts are filled with him, considering what a big moment in his life this was.

He just wished it had been with someone a little more… receptive.


	4. Fridays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've gotten a few questions about this so i figured i'd clarify, this will follow the same formula as wtlo up until a point, once i get the major meeting points out of the way i will be including new interactions so it doesn't get repetitive, i just have to get the beginning out of the way

Fridays were good days. Will liked Friday. If he could, he always tried to avoid scheduling class on Fridays, and this semester had worked out. Apollo’s didn’t open until lunch time, and the drug store usually scheduled him on nights, so he got to sleep in. Sure, Will didn’t really sleep in, but he appreciated the option.

Cecil _did_ have class on Fridays, and there was something cathartic about watching him miserably drag his ass to class. Him and Lou usually met for lunch on days he wasn’t working, and that’s where he was now, at the coffee shop across from Apollo’s.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“Excuse me for wanting to talk about something else for once.”

Lou Ellen purses her lips, but she must sense that Will is being serious, because she keeps away from the subject. Unfortunately, her next topic isn’t much better.

“Katie’s started dating someone.”

Will keeps his face blank. “Sometimes I think your love for drama gets in the way of your friendships.”

“I’m not being dramatic. I just figured you would probably prefer to hear it from me than from someone else. I’m trying to save you from another Baseball Captain Incident.” (See? Capitals.)

He grimaces. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. You’re fragile. I get it.”

“I’m not fragile.”

“You’re like glass, Solace.”

“Only after breakups.”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll give you that.”

Will laughs and Lou smiles at him. “She’s moving a little fast though, don’t you think? I mean it’s only been like, a month.”

Lou gives him a dry look. “Do I have to remind you that you fucked some random dude two weeks after you broke up?”

He blushes. “We didn’t fuck! And I was wasted. It’s totally different.”

“Is not.”

“Is so.”

“Is not.”

“Is so.”

He throws the napkin at her. Lou catches it easily and whips it back. “You’re a child.”

“Takes one to know one.”

Lou Ellen sticks her tongue out at him. Will gives her the finger before taking a sip of his hot chocolate.

“You have whipped cream on your nose, loser,” she says, reaching over and wiping it off with a finger before sticking her finger in her mouth. She looks at him funny. “Seriously, Will. You know that if anyone isn’t interested they’re idiots, right?”

Will makes a face. “B- touchy moment, Lou.”

She laughs. “You’re an asshole, Solace. I meant that. That came from my heart.”

“I don’t – what do you think is going to happen with this guy? I don’t even know him.”

Lou shrugs and spins her drink with her finger. “I don’t know. I can just feel something. Can’t you?”

“I can feel your sanity leave you.”

“I hate you.”

“Nah,” he says with a smile. Lou Ellen just rolls her eyes.

* * *

Will loves working at the drug store. Less human interaction. Not that Will doesn’t like people. It’s just been a long week.

When Will’s mother started dating his step-dad, they had found out that she had been a frequent visitor at the coffee shop he had worked with, and even shared a few mutual, if distant friends. His mother always said that was how it worked – once someone important entered your life, you realize you had crossed paths when them before.

It’s not that he thinks di Angelo is important. It’s that clearly, somebody, somewhere, is trying to prove that he is.

The apparently important person in question is standing at the other end of the aisle, looking at him as if it were Will who kept coming to _his_ places of work.

“You’re stalking me, aren’t you?” He says.

“I _work_ at these places, di Angelo. That means you’re stalking me.”

“You have two jobs?”

He shrugs. “College is expensive. And I still have med school.”

“How ambitious.” That was a word for it.

He notices where di Angelo is standing. The last time Will had made an assumption about di Angelo he had made an ass out of himself, so even though his first instinct is _baby daddy,_ he manages to keep his mouth shut.

He really needed to stop watching Teen Mom with Cecil.

“Diapers?”

Di Angelo blushes. He seemed to do that a lot. “My friends ran out.”

“Did they run out for their child or did they run out for themselves?”

He makes a face as if this were the most disgusting thing in the world. “Their _child._ Gross.”

“I’m pre-med, di Angelo. I don’t judge. Everyone shits themselves at some point.”

“Charming.” He looks at the shelves with a lost look. “I didn’t know there were so many. They forgot to tell me which kind. Hang on.” He takes his phone out and Will tries not to eavesdrop, but they’re pretty close, all right?

Nico says a bit before making an irritated noise and turning to Will. “He said the kind you can shit in,” he says. Will is weirdly honoured that he was including him.

“Well he’s not wrong.”

Di Angelo glares. It’s a pretty good glare, but Will was raised by a Southern mother, so it doesn’t have the desired effect.

He continues stocking the shelves as di Angelo continues to talk, gradually coming closer to Will.

All right, universe. He can take a hint.

Di Angelo hangs up the phone and then turns to Will. “Approximately how many packages of diapers do you think you can carry, pre-med?”

While Will is tempted to take him up on his offer, he figures it would probably be better customer service to point out they do, in fact, have baskets. Di Angelo grabs one and then starts throwing diapers in.

“How old?” Will asks, watching the rather impressive tower of diapers grow steadily larger.

“Um. 21?”

Fuck he was cute. “I meant their _kid.”_

“Oh. Three months.”

“Are you, like… uncle?”

His phone rings again before he can answer, and Will can hear the amused sounding voice of a woman on the other end, although he can’t quite make out what she’s saying.

Di Angelo makes an exasperated noise in the back of his throat. “Yes, I can get your stupid husband Cheetos,” he says. Will smiles to himself.

“Aisle six,” he tells di Angelo when he hangs up. “Cheetos.”

He holds out his hand for the basket, and when di Angelo looks at him funny, he says, “Give me your basket. I’ll check you out.” Which, in hindsight, was probably poor word choice, because another one of those infuriatingly attractive smirks crosses di Angelo’s face and he says, “I think we’re past that stage.”

Will, caught totally off guard, sputters incoherently before hightailing it out of there. Will rings up the diapers, making a brief vow to not even think about children until he can look at that total without freaking out.

It realistically probably doesn’t take all that long for di Angelo to come back, but when you’re waiting awkwardly with bags filled with diapers, time seems to go a lot slower.

“Get lost, di Angelo?” He asks when di Angelo finally arrives, two bags of Cheetos in his hands.

And then something very disconcerting happens – di Angelo grins at him. This wouldn’t normally be cause for concern, but di Angelo’s grin is slightly manic.

“You don’t remember my name, do you?”

“Of course I do. Di Angelo.”

“No, you found that out at the clinic. You don’t remember my name. That’s why you keep calling me by my last name. That’s the only one you know.”

Will debates denying this, but there really isn’t much point, so he tries a different tactic.

“Do you remember my name?”

“Will,” di Angelo says quickly. Will shakes his head.

“I have name tags. You don’t remember my name either, admit it.”

And then di Angelo stares at him, eyes boring into his soul, and Will meets his eyes for as long as he can before he is forced to look away.

“Solace. Will Solace.”

He scowls and rings up the Cheetos. “Fine, fine. I admit defeat. What’s your name?”

“That’s not nearly as fun,” di Angelo says with a little smirk, and as frustrating as this is Will can’t help but smile.

“Fair enough.” He holds out the receipt, but the phone rings again.

“I’m getting a new number. Yes?”

Di Angelo turns around, and Will makes a decision before he even realizes he was even considering it. He grabs a pen by the register and scribbles his number across the receipt. In the back of his mind he hopes that di Angelo doesn’t have to return anything, because that will be slightly awkward to explain to his manager.

He slips the receipt into one of the bags and tries to convince his heart to slow down.

“Receipt’s in the bag,” he tells him when he hangs up. Di Angelo takes it from him and turns to leave, before turning back and saying, “I’ll probably see you again, since you’re stalking me.”

Will laughs. He feels something shift between them, although he isn’t sure what.

“Count on it.”

* * *

Approximately three minutes after di Angelo leaves the store, Will starts freaking out. He leaves cash to go back to restocking, although he keeps screwing up because he is so busy muttering to himself.

“That was stupid, why would you even do that? Why did I think that would ever be a good idea?” He doesn’t even think di Angelo liked him, for fuck’s sake. That was stupid. And unprofessional.

He calls Lou Ellen.

“I did something very stupid.”

“Thank God, I was getting very bored.”

He tells her. She laughs.

“Yes! Cecil owes me money.”

“This is serious, Lou!”

“Look, Will, all you did was give him your number. You didn’t propose to him. If he doesn’t want to talk to you he just won’t text you. It’s not the end of the world.”

He wants to ask how long he should wait for a text message before giving up, but he can’t quite bring himself to ask, especially since he knows Lou Ellen will make fun of him for weeks. Months, maybe. Years.

“There are only two outcomes here, Solace. Either he contacts you or he doesn’t. Don’t stress yourself out over this. It’s out of your hands now. All right?”

He makes a brief noise that both of them know means he is going to stress about it the rest of the night. Lou Ellen sighs.

“Let me know what happens, okay?”

He makes another indecisive noise.

“I can’t believe you think _I’m_ the dramatic one,” she mutters before hanging up.

The rest of the shift goes stupidly slowly. He checks his phone a few times before realizing he was being utterly ridiculous. He manages to avoid looking at his phone unless he feels it vibrate (email, email, candy crush lives refilled, email, a string of emoji’s from Cecil, whatever the fuck that means). Near the end of his shift things get really busy and he forgets about anything that isn’t retail until he gets to his car.

Lou Ellen was right. There were only two possibilities, and it was ridiculous and useless to dwell on it. He gets home – Cecil is out, thank God – plugs his phone in, and falls asleep shortly after.

Later, when his phone goes off, he doesn’t hear it.


	5. Texts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again there is a lot of texting in this which is hella annoying but it had to be done

When he wakes up there’s a text waiting for him.

**From: Unknown Number**

**(11:43)** Smooth, Solace. Did you learn that from a John Hughes movie?

Will hurriedly adds the number as a contact – di Angelo, for now – and texts back.

**To: di Angelo**

**(6:24)** Sorry. I was on store closing duty. Then I was on sleeping duty.

**(6:24)** I thought it was pretty smooth, though

That was a lie. He had not thought it was smooth. He had thought it was the stupidest move on the face of the planet and he had spent all of last night freaking out about it.

But it had worked out. Just like Lou Ellen had said. Of course. Lou Ellen was always right. You would think that after fifteen years he would know that by now.

He and Lou Ellen met when he was seated next to her in their grade one class and Lou had looked over at his math homework and had said, confidently and with the slightest hint of a lisp, “That’s wrong.” He had asked, slightly offended, what was wrong, and she had replied, “All of it.”

She had been right. Will’s parents hadn’t been able to check over his homework the night before, and Will hadn’t been all that good at math back then. He had stared at the paper, biting his lip, feeling kind of like he was about to cry.

That was how he and Lou Ellen met. He and Lou Ellen became friends when she had pushed her paper towards him and said, “Hurry up and copy before we have to hand it in.”

They met Cecil in seventh grade when he had sat down, said “I’m Cecil,” and then threw up all over his desk. No one would talk to him after what Lou Ellen called the Great Vomit Catastrophe of Seventh Grade, except for Lou, who decided to more or less adopt him.

The Vomiter in question was splayed out on his stomach, snoring loudly, and Will thinks he might even be drooling. Will makes a face and gets dressed quietly. He has work at two at the drug store and a few things he has to review for school. He doesn’t expect a text back from di Angelo for a while now, judging from his morning attitude, so he is able to focus on other things. He gets a bagel and a hot chocolate from the coffee shop in the student lounge and sets up at a table. It is quiet; there are only two other students, and one of them is asleep on his backpack.

Will reviews his notes for about an hour when someone sits down next to him. He looks up to see Jake Mason, who is chowing down on a piece of pizza. Will checks his watch.

“Where did you get pizza at eight in the morning?”

“Don’t ever doubt my ability to find pizza at any time of the day, Will.”

“It’s too bad that’s not a talent in high demand.”

Jake shrugs. “We can’t all be doctors. But when you’ve been on call for thirty straight hours and you’re hungry and you want pizza at eight in the morning you know who to call.”

Will smiles. Jake worked with him at the drug store, and although they were friendly, they never really spoke much outside of work. So he waits for whatever it is Jake really wants.

After a brief pause he finally says, slowly, “So. I heard you broke up with Katie.”

Will sighs. Any other person Will would assume they were being nosy, but Jake wasn’t like that. As strange as it might be, Will thinks that Jake might be actually worried.

“A few weeks ago, yeah.”

“Sorry, dude.”

He shrugs. “It’s fine. It was mutual.”

“Breaks up are never mutual.”

He can’t deny that’s not true. Even if they had both known it was coming, it was Katie who had initiated it.

He shrugs again. “This shit happens.”

Jake claps him on the back. “You working today?”

He nods. “Two to close.”

“Me too, man. I’ll see you then.”

Will nods as Jake gets up, leaving behind a faint scent of pizza. Will puts his head back into his books.

Sometimes he wonders what it would be like to do college normally. To be able to focus solely on his studies and not being constantly concerned about scheduling conflicts with his jobs and his car breaking down and having to review everything on a constant basis in case he didn’t have time during exams. He thinks about Cecil, sleeping in on a Saturday. He thinks about di Angelo’s apartment.

He shouldn’t be bitter, honestly. He’s lucky to have the things that he has. No one ever said life would be easy.

He is almost done reviewing this week’s worth of classes when someone else slides in next to him. From the overwhelming smell of coffee, Will is guessing its Cecil.

“Morning,” he says, not looking up from his textbook. Cecil grunts.

“The world should not start before noon.”

Will snorts. “Why are you up, then?”

“Fucking Lou Ellen butt dialed me, that bitch.”

“How dare she.”

“I _know.”_ Cecil glances at Will’s textbook. “Did you know the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell?”

“I know that. Everyone knows that. That’s tenth grade science, Cecil.”

“I’m just trying to help.”

Will’s phone buzzes. He ignores it, trying to sludge through the last few pages of notes, but Cecil says, “I bet that’s Lou Ellen,” and grabs Will’s phone. Will doesn’t think anything of this – the three of them had been using each other’s phones for years – but when Cecil doesn’t say anything he looks up.

Cecil is grinning at him. “What?” Will asks. Cecil holds out his phone, and it is only then that Will’s schoolwork laden mind remembers the fact that he had texted di Angelo this morning.

“Shut up.”

“You didn’t tell me you gave him your number!”

“I haven’t seen you!”

“Fuck, that means Lou won. Can I borrow fifty bucks?”

“You bet _fifty dollars?”_

“Excuse me for thinking you weren’t going to move on so damn fast! Here,” he says, handing Will his phone back. “He wants to know why you’re a morning person.”

Will checks the message.

**From: di Angelo**

**(11:38)** Why the fuck are you awake at 630 on a Saturday

Will types back a reply.

**To: di Angelo**

**(11:40)** I like mornings. I find it hard to sleep when the sun is up

“Stop looking at me Cecil.”

**From: di Angelo**

**(11:42)** sorry, I’m morally against morning people. Enjoy life, pre-med

Will smiles.

“What’s he saying? Are you sexting?”

“Oh my _God,_ Cecil.”

“What are the chances of you not telling Lou Ellen this until next year?”

“She already knows.”

Cecil swears. “I’m always the last to know everything.”

**To: di Angelo**

**(11:45)** is that why you always look like a vampire

The reply comes immediately, as Will had guessed that it would.

**From: di Angelo**

**(11:45)** I do NOT

**To: di Angelo**

**(11:46)** I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear colour

**(11:46)** and if you’re one of those people who say that black is a colour I will kill you

**From: di Angelo**

**(11:47)** isn’t that against the doctor’s moral code

**(11:47)** also the law

**To: di Angelo**

**(11:48)** I’m not a doctor yet

And then, just to be annoying, Will edits the contact information.

“Does he actually look like a vampire?”

Will looks at Cecil, who is hovering over his shoulder, incredulously. “Do you mind?”

“Not really.”

Will rolls his eyes and turns around so Cecil can’t read over his shoulder.

**To: Vampire Boy**

**(11:51)** it’s official you have been named vampire boy in my phone

**From: Vampire Boy**

**(11:52)** I am not a vampire

**To: Vampire Boy**

**(11:52)** then tell me your name

“That was a good line.”

“CECIL.”

“What? I’m being supportive.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“Yes, actually. Lou Ellen wants to meet for lunch. You coming?”

“No. I’m going to head back and get ready for work.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Cecil mutters. “I’ll see you later.”

“Bye,” Will says, shoving his books in his bag and heading back to his room.

He knows it’s dangerous to text and walk, but he does it anyway.

**From: Vampire Boy**

**(11:54)** nice try. That wasn’t quite as smooth as your receipt trick

**To: Vampire Boy**

**(11:55)** every time you text me I get a little notification saying ‘vampire boy’

**From: Vampire Boy**

**(11:56)** I’m taking an educated guess that you don’t like being called William and from now on will only call you that until you stop calling me vampire boy

**To: Vampire Boy**

**(11:57)** DO NOT CALL ME WILLIAM

**(11:57)** THAT’S NOT FAIR I DON’T KNOW YOUR NAME

Maybe the caps lock was a bit excessive, but he really, really hates being called William.

**From: Vampire Boy**

**(11:59)** It’s official you are now William

Will curses.

**To: Vampire Boy**

**(12:03)** I’m gonna look you up

**(12:03)** would that be cheating

**From: Vampire Boy**

**(12:04)** yes and also you only know my last name

**To: Vampire Boy**

**(12:06)** how many di angelo’s can there really be

Will lets himself into the room and sits down on his bed. He has almost two hours before he has to leave for work, but he knows he won’t be able to concentrate on anything with this going on, so he opens up Pokemon instead. He also, despite the warning, looks up the name di Angelo. The first hit he gets is a pizza parlour, which he thinks might just be a bit stereotypical.

**From: Vampire Boy**

**(12:07)** clearly you’ve never been to Italy

Italy. Please. Will had never left New York.

**To: Vampire Boy**

**(12:08)** have you???

**From: Vampire Boy**

**(12:12)** yeah, a few times. My dad’s from there

**To: Vampire Boy**

**(12:14)** so do you actually speak Italian?

**From: Vampire Boy**

**(12:15)** yes

This causes Will to pause. Something about di Angelo, with his long fingers and his dark eyes, speaking Italian, is causing strange things to happen in Will’s stomach.

**To: Vampire Boy**

**(12:18)** oh

**(12:18)** that’s uh

**(12:19)** oh

**(12:19)** ok. yeah

**From: Vampire Boy**

**(12:21)** I guess I’ll save that talent for the next rainy day

Will stares at his phone. He types out the message. He deletes the message. He takes a deep breath. _Just send it,_ he thinks to himself. _You sucked his dick, for fuck’s sake._

Unsurprisingly, that didn’t help. But he sends it anyway.

**To: Vampire Boy**

**(12:25)** I think it’s supposed to rain tomorrow

He waits. He freaks out, mildly. He waits. He catches a Sandshrew. He freaks out, moderately. He waits. His Pidgey evolves. He freaks out, extremely.

Fuck. Time to backtrack.

**To: Vampire Boy**

**(12:38)** sorry

**(12:38)** I shouldn’t have said that

The reply comes shortly after, and Will lets out a sigh of relief.

**From: Vampire Boy**

**(12:39)** fuck no I’m sorry

**(12:39)** I’m trying to write an essay

**(12:40)** I got distracted by my utter lack of motivation

Will knows how that feels.

**To: Vampire Boy**

**(12:41)** ok good. I was worried I had like. Idk. Scared you away

He is so new at this. It is strange. There was never anything like this with Katie or any of his other girlfriends. None of this strange back and forth, the simultaneous awkwardness and familiarity that came from having done this before with each other. Will can’t remember his name and yet he had seen him naked. The first time he had ever had sex with a girl was eleventh grade and they had done it in the dark and she had kept her shirt on the whole time. Will hadn’t actually had sex with a girl with the lights on until the end of his first year of university. Every relationship he had ever had started slow, first dates and second dates and good night kisses. Will liked things slow, liked learning the small things. This was already faster than anything Will had ever done.

And he couldn’t get enough.

**From: Vampire Boy**

**(12:43)** no offence or anything but I’ve already seen you naked. It’s going to take more than a few dirty jokes to scare me away

**To: Vampire Boy**

**(12:45)** is that a challenge?

**From: Vampire Boy**

**(12:46)** are you saying you’re trying to scare me away?

Will swears. He was so bad at this. He had never been very good at flirting to begin with, and this was totally new territory to him. Will was decently attractive and so he could get away with being a complete and total idiot most of the time (or so he has been told by Lou Ellen), but that probably wouldn’t be the same over text messages. He can imagine di Angelo smirking at his phone, laughing at Will’s fumbling flirtations. He texts back.

**To: Vampire Boy**

**(12:48)** NO god I am so bad at this I told you that already

**(12:48)** I meant like. Idk. Something about dirty jokes??

**(12:49)** I SAID I WAS BAD AT THIS

**(12:50)** I’m not good at flirting ok

He gets a reply shortly after, not that it helps.

**From: Vampire Boy**

**(12:52)** dude we’ve already fucked

**(12:53)** relax

Will snorts. Yeah, that was going to work.

**To: Vampire Boy**

**(12:55)** yes Will think about the hot Italian guy you fooled around with one night when you were drunk that should totally calm you down

**(12:56)** I have work soon though. When I’m done I’m gonna figure out your name

He still has a few minutes before he actually has to get going, but he needs to step back from this conversation and settle his nerves. It’s strange; he used to be under the impression that he didn’t even like this guy, and yet despite all the signs telling him Not Your Type, he had given him his number.

And di Angelo had texted him back.

**From: Vampire Boy**

**(12:59)** you said it a lot last weekend. Quite loudly. I’m sure you’ll remember

Will gapes at his phone, frozen.

**To: Vampire Boy**

**(1:03)** I AM GOING TO IGNORE THAT 

He gets into his uniform, but he was going mostly off of habit, because his mind is elsewhere. He is thinking about the text messages. He is thinking about the fact that he’s starting to kind of like this guy.

What a way to start the school year.


	6. Working

Work is slow. He and Jake Mason play I Spy for half an hour straight before the first customer comes in. It’s never this slow, and Will is annoyed. The one time he needs something to take his mind off of things and work is failing him.

At around 4:00 his mother calls, and the store is dead enough that he ducks into the back to take it.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Will,” she says. Will’s mother had lived in New York since Will was a baby but she had stubbornly held onto her Southern accent even after twenty years. She said it gave her power. “How are you.”

Will’s mother never used question marks. It was one of her Things. Will knew a lot of women with Things, whether it was capital letters or not asking questions. Will didn’t have any Things.

“I’m good. I’m working.”

“Should you be on the phone then.”

“I’m on break,” he lies. Will was not a good liar. Will was especially not a good liar to his mother.

“You’re good at many things, Will, but lying is not one of them,” she says, humour in her voice. “It made it very easy to raise you. I’ll let you get back to work. I just wanted to check in.”

Will doesn’t answer this. His mother had done an awful lot of checking in since he broke up with Katie. He can’t blame her, and it was nice to have someone after the fact that was supportive without being on the verge of ridiculousness (Cecil had volunteered to hire a hitman; Lou told him she would request a new roommate if he wanted. He appreciated their concern, but they were a little over the top), but the amount of concern and discussion about him and Katie recently is starting to make his head spin. He just wanted to forget it.

Besides, he has other things going on right now. Not that he would tell his mother that. Theoretically, his mother knew his sexuality. In actuality, he wasn’t entirely sure what her reaction would be if he actually did anything about it.

“Thanks, Mom,” he says. “I’m fine.”

“Maybe you and your friends could come up here soon. It would be nice to see you.”

“I’ll talk to them.”

“Good. Call me soon, Will. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he says, rolling his eyes. He loved his mother, honestly. But she was slightly overbearing. It’s not like this was his first breakup.

“Excuse me?” A voice calls out as soon as he heads back out to the front. “This is scanning as $4.39, but the tag says it’s $2.15.”

Will represses a groan and goes to help the lady.

He kills another two hours before his next break, and something is niggling at the back of his mind.

**To: Vampire Boy**

**(6:13)** okay, I think I remember

**(6:14)** it’s almost like a girl’s name

He is almost finished his sub by the time he gets a text back.

**From: Vampire Boy**

**(6:20)** it’s not a girl’s name

**(6:20)** I thought you were at work

**To: Vampire Boy**

**(6:22)** which is why I said ALMOST

**(6:22)** and for your information, Mr. Nosy, I am at work

**(6:23)** I’m going to keep calling you vampire boy unless you tell me

“Excuse me? Do you have milk?”

Will looks up. There is a customer standing in the doorway. Of the back room. That said ‘employees only’ on the door.

He fucking hates retail.

He debates telling the man he can’t just open up off limit doors because he can’t be bothered to lift his head and find ‘milk’ on the overhead signs. Instead he just says, “Last aisle on the left,” because it’s not worth it.

**To: Cecil; Lou Ellen**

**(6:25)** Guy just walked into the back room to ask where the milk was I hate retail

**From: Cecil**

**(6:25)** The guy who asked for toilet paper while standing in front of the toilet paper is still my favourite

**From: Lou Ellen**

**(6:26)** No the best is the couple who started making out in the aisle

**To: Lou Ellen; Cecil**

**(6:26)** “We didn’t think anyone would need diapers this late all the babies should be asleep”

Will shakes his head at the memory. He remembers that couple, no older than seventeen, staring at him unabashedly. He had said something along the lines of “If you keep that up you’ll need diapers very soon.”

He thinks about them. He thinks about diapers. He thinks about di Angelo, a basket filled with diapers and two bags of Cheetos.

**To: Vampire Boy**

**(6:27)** If I guess

**(6:27)** can I see you again?

**From: Vampire Boy**

**(6:30)** you don’t have to guess my name to see me again

Will grins and stuffs his phone back in his pocket, and when someone tries to return a half-eaten chocolate bar because “I didn’t know it was dark chocolate,” not even that can ruin his mood.

* * *

“Can I ask you a question?” He asks Cecil later that night. He is reading in low light that is definitely going to ruin his eyes; Cecil has been swearing at the Zelda game he has been playing for forty five minutes.

“Yeah.”

“Do you actually think I’m moving too fast?”

Cecil doesn’t pause the game, and Will distinctly hears him mutter “ _fuck you you Goron piece of shit,”_ but he says, calmly, “Are you admitting that there’s something going on between – BITE MY ASS – you and this guy?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want there to be?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know anything?”

“Not really. I think I like talking to him. I guess.”

“I hope you guys get married so I can use this in my wedding speech. ‘I knew they were meant to be when Will told me he liked talking to him, probably.’”

“Fuck off, Cecil.”

Cecil sighs. “Look, Will, you only move on as quickly as you need to. If you’re ready to move on then you’re ready. There’s no universal timeline after a break up. Katie’s already moved on.”

“Thanks for the reminder.”

“You can’t fault her for doing the exact same thing you’re doing.”

“I can fault her for anything,” he mutters.

“You don’t need to justify your feelings. Even if nothing works with this guy.”

Will shifts uncomfortably. “Are you doing the Goron race?”                                                                                                                   

“You’re not allowed to change a subject you brought up.”

“I just… I don’t know. I feel guilty, I think.”

“God, Will, it’s not like you’ve fucked the guy. Oh wait.”

“I didn’t fuck him.”

“Blow jobs definitely count.”

“I’m going to _kill_ Lou I can’t believe she told you that.”

Cecil cackles. “That was a total guess. I can’t fucking believe you blew him. Oh my God. What was it like?”

“I have the worst friends,” Will says.

“If you think you’re ready to move on then it isn’t too fast, Will.”

“I guess. I don’t know. It’s weird. He doesn’t seem like someone I would like.”

“And yet.”

He sighs in resignation. “And yet.”

“Just keep texting him, Solace. You don’t have to make any decisions now. Relax for once in your life.”

“I wonder what that would be like.”

“If we’re done the supportive friend shit can you beat this fucking race for me, _please?”_

Will laughs and takes the 3DS. “Sure.”

* * *

Monday involves a few hours of class, a pop quiz (he is offended that his Thursday theory is being disproved), and a frantic text from Austin asking him if he could cover his shift. Will doesn’t ask why, because truthfully he doesn’t want to know what Austin gets up to, and even though he had been looking forward to a day off Austin seems desperate. And hey, it’s always more money.

“Lou wants to know if we want to go out for dinner tonight,” Cecil says, as Will runs upstairs to get changed. Will throws on his uniform (collared shirt with the logo across the chest, the word _Apollo’s_ with the sun rising behind it. It’s probably the lamest thing on the face of the planet, but there are probably worse uniforms to wear).

“Can’t. Austin asked me to take his shift.”

Cecil shakes his head. “The one day you have off and you schedule work anyway. You’re a workaholic, Solace. You need an intervention.”

“I don’t have time for an intervention.”

“You’re gonna drop dead one of these days.”

“Good thing I’m pre-med then, huh?” He grins at Cecil, who rolls his eyes, and bolts out the door.

* * *

“You are not Austin,” Kayla says as he walks in.

“Nothing gets past you, does it? Austin had an emergency.”

“What kind of emergency?”

“Frankly I was too frightened to ask.”

Kayla laughs. “I don’t blame you.”

Will shoves his stuff into his locker. There is a small child who won’t stop screaming, a middle aged woman who keeps hitting on him, and an elderly woman who keeps calling him ‘sonny.’ All this he can handle.

Then he turns around and sees a familiar dark head, who is currently murmuring frantically at someone blond, who looks vaguely like Captain America.

Will doesn’t really believe in God, or fate, or destiny, or anything. But clearly there’s something or someone out there in the universe who is trying to tell him something.

He remembers Cecil’s words. _You only move on as quickly as you need to. If you’re ready to move on then you’re ready._

“You’re really not trying to disprove the stalking theory, are you?”

Di Angelo kicks his roommate under the table. His roommate kicks him back before grinning at Will.

“Hi,” his roommate says. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m –”

“Dead,” di Angelo says, but Will does remember him.

“Roommate. I know.”

Di Angelo drops his face into his hands and lets out a longsuffering sigh. “Why do all my friends hate me,” he says. His roommate snorts. Will is getting the feeling that this had been his plan.

“You’re so dramatic,” Captain America says to di Angelo.

“I do have to take your drink order,” Will says, watching this exchange with interest. Will wouldn’t have pegged this guy as di Angelo’s friend. He had assumed they had just been roommates. But he can tell from their interaction and the way Captain America keeps laughing at every smirk di Angelo throws at them that they’re close, and have been for a while. They have the kind of ease around each other that he has with Cecil and Lou Ellen.

He comes back to take their order. Roommate orders and then says, sweeping an arm towards di Angelo as if he were some prize, “And the gentleman will have…”

“Your head on a platter,” di Angelo mutters. Will smiles.

“We don’t serve that here.” That gets a laugh out of the roommate, but a glare from di Angelo that doesn’t fade even as he orders.

The rest of their lunch (dinner? What came between lunch and dinner?) passes normally. Captain America keeps giving Will amused looks which gets him repeatedly kicked, but other than that everything is normal. It’s slightly embarrassing, but Will is also pleased, because this means di Angelo talks about him to his friends.

That means he isn’t the only one feeling whatever this is.

When Will takes their bill he sees – again – a very generous tip. This one night stand was seriously boosting his income. And then he sees, scrawled on the bottom of the receipt, _much love, Nico xo._

_Nico._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> man fuck that Goron race


	7. Lou Mom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> man these chapter lengths are sooooo inconsistent   
> sorry for the long delay honestly work is kicking my ass fuck capitalism

**To: Nico di Angelo**

**(7:22)** NICO

**(7:22)** NICO

**(7:22)** NICO DI ANGELO

**From: Nico di Angelo**

**(7:24)** congrats. I will refrain from calling you William from now on

His shift had ended and he was sitting in his car texting. Nico di Angelo. He says it aloud a few times, testing it out in his mouth, trying to sift through memories. The name helped a little, but not by much. He can remember the party. Vague memories of a lot of drinks. He thinks he might have pushed di Angelo up against the wall and kissed him. And they had kissed on the way home, he remembers. A lot.

Nico di Angelo.

**To: Nico di Angelo**

**(7:25)** I was right about it being almost like a girl’s name

**(7:26)** it’s half of Nicole

**From: Nico di Angelo**

**(7:27)** don’t I know it

**To: Nico di Angelo**

**(7:28)** what does that mean?

**From: Nico di Angelo**

**(7:30)** when I came out a bunch of kids at my school kept calling me ‘Nicole di Angelo.’ You know, because gay = girl. Quality comedy, really.

Will looks at the message. High school had been good for him, mostly. Other than the Baseball Captain Incident it had passed by with no real emotional damage. He had been decently popular. He had been on the soccer team. Girls had liked him. No had really bullied him, unless you count the captain of the baseball team. And even if they had – even if at any point in his life something like that had happened – he had always had Lou Ellen and Cecil.

**To: Nico di Angelo**

**(7:32)** shit. I’m sorry. Did they ever stop?

**From: Nico di Angelo**

**(7:33)** Jason – my roommate – threatened to beat them up if they didn’t stop. Then he actually punched one of them in the face. Broke his nose. They pretty much stopped after that. At least to my face.

Will thinks of Captain America, who was beginning to sound more and more like actual Captain America. He remembers thinking that they didn’t seem like the type of people who would be friends. Shows how much he knew.

He really needed to stop making snap decisions about this guy.

**To: Nico di Angelo**

**(7:34)** wow. Remind me to thank him

**(7:35)** okay. Confession time

**(7:36)** I didn’t remember your name. Your roommate – I’m assuming, since I don’t think you would ever do this – wrote ‘much love, Nico xo’ on the receipt

**From: Nico di Angelo**

**(7:37)** what roommate, I don’t have a roommate, just a dead body stuffed in my closet

**To: Nico di Angelo**

**(7:38)** so a literal skeleton in your closet

Having enough of sitting in a parking lot, and assuming Nico was going to go ream out his roommate, Will drives back to his place. He parks and is just about to head back upstairs when he gets another text.

**From: Nico di Angelo**

**(7:50)** my television is broken. Wanna meet up somewhere?

Will turns his car back on.

**To: Nico di Angelo**

**(7:52)** sure

* * *

Will orders a hot chocolate and sits down at Starbucks. A few minutes and a candy crush level later and Nico walks in.

“I’m not just a replacement for your television, am I?” He asks as Nico sits down.

“Course not. There was nothing good on tonight anyway.”

“What happened to it?”

“Jason and I were having a pillow fight.” He says this calmly, as if he were commenting on the weather. Will stares at him in disbelief.

“You make literally no sense, do you know that?”

Nico shrugs.

“So. Nico. Nico. Nicoooo.”

Nico’s mouth curls up. “I get it. You know my name. Not that you get any credit for that whatsoever.”

“I was drunk, okay? I’m normally really good with names. I’ve just… never been that drunk before.” He decides not to mention the St. Patrick’s Day incident of eleventh grade. He had vowed to forget about that. And for the most part he had, other than the very vivid memory of making out with his best friend. Honestly Will is completely relieved that Jason had left him that note, because truthfully he has no idea when he would have remembered Nico’s name.

“I remembered your name.”

“I had _name tags.”_

Nico’s phone rings again. Will has two jobs and his phone doesn’t ring as much as Nico’s does.

“Sorry, it’s Jason,” he says, and then, in a harsher tone, “What.”

He can only hear one side of the conversation, but there’s a lot of swearing. Nico is clearly unhappy about something. At the end he says, “Bite my ass.” Will raises his eyebrows.

“Who gets to bite your ass?” He inwardly cringes at the wording of that sentence, but Nico doesn’t seem to notice.

“Our friend who was going to fix our television is currently stuck outside my apartment because he lost his key. I, uh, gotta go. Sorry.”

Will tries to hide his disappointment, but he probably fails. “Okay. No problem.” He doesn’t hold it against Nico, since he was the one who had called Will, and he seems pretty annoyed. It isn’t his fault, after all.

Nico stands up, stops, and then turns back to Will. “Uh. Do you want to tag along? I feel bad for leaving so early.”

Will smiles. He may not be the best at reading signs, but he’s pretty sure that means di Angelo is interested.

“Sure. I have a car. We’ll get there quicker.”

Will’s definition of car is not, apparently, the same as Nico’s. Judging from his expression, at least.

“You call this a car?”

“It is a car!”

“In the loosest sense of the world.”

The poor Shitmobile. She’s been so good to him, and no one else appreciated her like he did. Not even his mechanic appreciated her.

“Come on. It’s not going to kill you.”

“Are you sure?”

Will climbs in, but Nico stays outside and looks at the car with concern all over his face. “You know walking is good for your health,” he says. Will honks the horn at him. “Please tell me you at least have seatbelts.”

“You _are_ dramatic.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Get in and find out then, di Angelo.”

Nico climbs into the car. The Shitmobile, of course, chooses this moment to stall, but after a few turns of his key and a mental prayer of _I’m trying to impress a guy here, car,_ it starts moving. Nico looks less than thrilled about this.

“Okay. Direct me.”

“I’m offended you don’t remember. Did I make so little an impression?”

He glances over at di Angelo, who is smirking at him. Will gets the distinct impression that Nico likes making him uncomfortable.

“I was _drunk.”_

Nico’s place is not far from his work at all, and it only takes about two minutes to get there. Nico all but dives out of the car, vowing aloud that he would never ride it in again. Will just laughs at him.

When they get up to Nico’s floor Will sees a scrawny Latino kid tinkering with the doorbell. Nico calls him Leo.

“I got bored. I’m trying to see if I can make your doorbell ring to the tune of the _Imperial March.”_

“Can you do that?” Will asks, because that sounds fucking _awesome._

Nico says no. Leo says of course. Will is more apt to believe the guy with the toolbox.

“I’m Leo Valdez,” he says, putting his screwdriver between his teeth and shaking Will’s hand. Will introduces himself and then follows the three of them into the apartment. Leo and Nico mutter to each other for a bit, Nico looking annoyed – Will was sensing that this was a bit of a theme with Nico – before Leo catches sight of the broken television in question.

“You know, I go to all that work to get you guys free HBO and this is how you treat me?”

“It was Jason’s fault,” Nico says, but Will is focused more on Leo’s last comment.

“You get free HBO?”

Leo nods. “I can probably hook you up, too, if you’d like. A friend of Nico’s is a friend of mine.”

“I have no friends,” Nico mutters, but Will is thrilled. He’s starting to really like Nico’s friends.

“Seriously? That would be amazing. Could you make my doorbell ring the _Imperial March_ too?”

Leo looks up from where he had been crouching in front of the television and grins at him. “I like him. Keep him,” he says to Nico, who rolls his eyes.

“You know, I was planning on throwing him down the garbage disposal, but if you insist.”

Leo winks at Will, who has wandered over to watch what he was doing. “Isn’t he charming?”

 “I like him,” he says. He glances back at Nico, who is hiding his face in the fridge. Will grins.

Nico grabs a drink and sits down on the couch, his phone out in front of him. Leo is explaining in words that Will does not understand what he is doing as he’s doing it, and even though Will has no idea what the hell any of it means it’s fascinating, and Leo clearly loves talking about it. He hopes this is getting him kudos, making friends with Nico’s friends.

Leo would probably like Bruce.

Eventually Will’s legs start cramping and he sits down beside Nico. Their couch is tiny, so he has to sit decently close. Will isn’t exactly all that upset about that.

“That’s amazing. He’s incredible.”

“He’s all right,” Nico says.

“I will make you pay for HBO, di Angelo, don’t think that I won’t,” Leo says, not looking up from where he was tinkering with the television.

“Jason would kill you.”

“I could take Jason.’

Nico lets out a disbelieving noise. “With those skinny little arms? Not likely.” Having seen Jason, Will can’t help but agree, but he isn’t going to say that aloud.

“I could take you though.”

“I think he’s right,” Will says after surveying them both. Nico glares.

“Whose side are you on, Solace?”

“The side that’s getting me free HBO.”

Nico shakes his head, but he is smiling the slightest bit. Will watches the way his lips curve up and tries to remember what he had tasted like.

When Leo is finished he scrawls his number down and gives it to Will, saying “I’m serious about the HBO thing.” Will is ecstatic. Then he turns to Nico and says, “See ya, Third Wheel the Second.”

“Don’t call me that,” Nico mutters, but Leo just blows him a kiss. Will’s interest is piqued.

“Third Wheel the Second?” He asks once Leo is gone. Nico looks up at the ceiling as if he had known this question was coming and he was cursing Leo to the heavens for it.

“Leo’s known Jason since elementary school. When he started dating his girlfriend, Leo dubbed himself Third Wheel the First, since he’s known Jason longer. I am Third Wheel the Second. Apparently.”

Will stares at him, waiting for him to amend this statement with anything that would make it make more sense, and when nothing comes, starts reworking what he knows about Nico di Angelo, because _nothing about this guy made sense._

“You are way weirder than I ever would have thought,” he says, and it’s true. This is what he got for making snap decisions about someone. Sure, Nico di Angelo seemed pretty off-putting, when you first met him, but once you got past all the scowling and glaring and eye rolling, he was just a normal – maybe a little weird, even – guy.

“Am not,” he argues, but Will shakes his head.

“No, seriously. You have cute little nicknames, you go on diaper runs for your friends, you have pillow fights in your apartment –”

“Fuck off,” Nico laughs.

“No, it’s cute. I don’t have pillow fights with my roommate.” Cecil would probably win, anyway.

“It was only a pillow fight because Jason’s a fucking moron.”

Will smiles. He hopes he gets to know this Jason guy a lot better. “I like him. Does he still punch people in the nose? Can I rent him out?” There isn’t really anyone right now that Will would like to punch, but he likes to keep his options open.

“I don’t think so,” Nico says with a smirk. “Sorry.”

“Damn.” He notices what looks like graduation pictures and, intrigued, stands up to look at them. He doesn’t know if he’s being pushy, or anything, but he consoles himself with the knowledge that it had been Nico who had wanted to meet up, and it had been Nico who had invited Will back to his apartment, so Will probably wasn’t going to ruin anything by looking through his pictures.

There are a few of them. He recognizes Nico, Leo, and Jason, and there is a pretty girl who he assumes is Jason’s girlfriend. Nico is in every picture, smushed between Jason and Piper, looking like he was trying to be miserable and failing, or squished between Jason and Leo, with a similar expression, and Leo holding up bunny ears behind his head. Nico clearly hadn’t hit his last growth spurt, because he was shorter even than Leo. “You said you met in high school?”

“Yeah. He was basically my body guard for four years. No one wants to beat up the gay kid when the gay kid’s best friend is so formidable.” And then he says, heavy on the sarcasm, “High school was a great time.”

 Will lets out a low whistle of sympathy. “I’m sorry. I don’t even have, like, a ‘I had a shit time too you’re not alone’ type story. I didn’t even realize I was bi until college.”

“How’d that come up?”

Will has a voice of reason in his head. It is a woman’s voice, and it sounds like some strange mixture of his mother and Lou Ellen. He calls the voice Lou Mom. At this point of the conversation, Lou Mom is standing up and looking vaguely concerned.

“I woke up in some hot Italian’s bed.”

Lou Mom is waving her arms at him right now, gesturing at him to stop, step back, something is going wrong. Nico sits up straight and stares at him. “Tell me you’re joking.”

_Tell him you’re joking,_ Lou Mom says. Will ignores her, because Will is an idiot. “I mean… I knew I’d had _feelings_ for guys before –”

_“Will.”_

“What’s the big deal?” Lou Mom is jumping up and down right now.

“I am not your fucking college experiment, Solace.”

“I never said you were!”

“What happened, you get so fucking drunk and you decide, ‘hey, you know what I should try tonight? I should try blowing some stranger!’”

“That is not what happened! Look, I knew I liked guys I had just never – I only got that drunk because my girlfriend had broken up with me –”

Lou Mom has given up, shaking her head in dismay.

“So I am your _rebound college experiment,”_ Nico says incredulously. Will can sense that something has fucked up, and that he is the one who has caused it.

“No! Nico! Look, I really like you, okay?”

“How would you _know?”_

That’s a little ridiculous. “I know the way I _feel,_ Nico.”

Nico stands up. “I have been jerked around too many fucking times to put up with it anymore, Solace.”

“I am not _jerking you around._ Look, obviously that night wasn’t an experiment or I wouldn’t have given you my number. And as for the girlfriend thing… look, it hadn’t been working for a while, I didn’t even really have feelings for her anymore, and I knew it was coming, but no one likes being dumped! You are –” He blushes, because what he is about to say is embarrassing, but he needs to do some backtracking. “You’re the first person I’ve ever really _felt_ like this with. It’s like – I don’t know, it’s like I constantly want to talk to you and be around you and I want to know you better –”

“That’s just your sexual confusion talking,” Nico tells him coldly.

“Nico, please don’t –”

Nico’s phone rings. Will sits down on the couch and puts his head in his hands. Lou Mom is shaking her head at him in disbelief. Nico’s conversation is clipped but Will is not listening. He is trying to figure out when everything go so fucked up.

When Nico is finished his phone call he says, “You should go.” Will tries to object but Nico isn’t listening. “I have work to do,” he says, and neither he nor Lou Mom can think of a way out of this, so he just does as he is asked and gets up to leave.


	8. Bonehead

Will makes his way up to Lou’s room on autopilot. He is trying to figure out what had just happened, and he is trying to figure out what had caused it. He knocks on her door and slumps against the wall.

“Will.”

Here’s the bad thing about dating your best friend’s roommate – just because you break up doesn’t mean they stop being roommates.

This is the exact opposite of what he needs right now.

“Hi, Katie. Is Lou here?”

He met Katie Gardner during orientation week, because she was Lou’s roommate. They all got along very well, which was lucky, since Lou hadn’t known her before, and he had heard some horrible roommate horror stories. After first year her and Lou had decided they wanted to remain roommates. It was shortly before the end of their first year that he asked her out. They had dated until the end of this summer, and even though it had ended as mutually as any breakup ever could, the months leading up to it had been awkward and messy, the way it always is when you fall out of love with someone.

“No, she’s not. She wasn’t here when I got back. If she’s not with you she’s probably with Cecil.” Katie smiles slightly at this, and Will tries to force one onto his face, but it probably doesn’t work.

“Okay. Thanks.” He turns to leave but is stopped by a hand on his arm.

“Will. Are you okay?”

He shifts out of her grip. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

Katie studies him. “Will. Just because things didn’t… work out, doesn’t mean I don’t know you. I know that there’s something wrong.”

“Lou said you started dating someone?”

Katie steps back. “Is that how this is going to go?”

Will sighs. “No. I’m sorry. I was just… curious. Honestly. Who is it?”

She blushes and mutters something. “Pardon?” He asks.

“Travis Stoll,” she says quietly. Will stares.

“Are you being serious?”

She looks at the floors and nods.

“Katie, you hate Travis Stoll.”

“I know, but… apparently I don’t.”

Will exhales disbelievingly. “Wow. Travis Stoll.”

“I know you might think that it’s a little… soon, but you and I both know it had been done for ages, Will, and I – nothing ever happened when we were together, I would never have done that, but this relationship ended months ago. You know that as well as I do.”

“I’m less concerned about the timing and more about the fact that it’s _Travis Stoll.”_

She laughs. “I know. I can’t really believe it either. And it’s new – like, really, really new, but sometimes things are just different then you thought they were.”

He smiles softly at her. “I hope it works out, Katie. Honestly I do.”

“Thank you,” she says. “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to help?”

Despite this weird, supportive moment between the two of them Will is still not prepared to discuss his sexual awakening with his ex-girlfriend. “No, Katie, it’s fine. I’ll try and find Lou. Thank you. And good luck with Travis Stoll. I imagine you’ll need it.”

She laughs. “I hope whatever you’re upset about solves itself.”

He nods, although he doesn’t have much hope, judging by how angry Nico had been. “Thanks, Katie.” She kisses his cheek before heading back into the room, and he takes out his phone to call Lou.

She picks up on the third ring. “Solace! I’m getting pretty tired of you blowing me off for work.”

“Where are you?” He tries to keep his voice neutral, but he must fail, because she immediately says, “Wherever you need me to be,” which is a really, really cheesy line, but he appreciates it nonetheless.

“Just – meet me at my place? If you can? Bring Cecil if he’s there.”

“Okay. I’ll be there soon.”

* * *

“Look, Will. I’m not saying you weren’t an idiot, but he still blew it totally out of proportion.”

“But I was an idiot.”

He is lying on his bed, while Cecil is on his across the room. Lou Ellen is sitting beside him, running her fingers absentmindedly through his hair. It is an incredibly soothing motion and it is helping calm him down.

“It probably wasn’t a good thing to mention on the first date,” Cecil says. “Why didn’t you listen to Lou Mom?”

“Because I’m an idiot, we’ve established this.”

“Still, Will, I think most of the onus is on him,” Lou says. “Even if it was a bonehead move it wasn’t enough of a bonehead move to warrant kicking you out.”

“I can’t believe you just used to words ‘onus’ and ‘bonehead’ in the same sentence.”

She pinches him.

“Clearly he’s jumpy, Solace,” Cecil chimes in. “Something caused this, but it was all on his end. Don’t worry about it.”

He sighs. “I was really starting to like him.”

“You barely knew him.”

“So? We became friends after you threw up everywhere, why is it so surprising that I would develop feelings for someone after sleeping with them?”

“I fail to see the correlation,” Cecil says.

“He’s saying he likes lost causes,” Lou provides. Will snorts.

“I am not a lost cause!” Cecil protests.

“And neither was he,” Will adds.

“Maybe not, but it’s not worth it right now, Will,” Lou says, her voice uncharacteristically soft. “You just got out of a relationship, you don’t need to be complicating things up even more.”

“Speaking of which, you didn’t tell me it was _Travis Stoll_ that Katie was dating.”

Lou lets out a burst of laughter. “Because she didn’t tell me! Tell me you’re joking.”

“I went to your room hoping to find you but it was just her, and she’s dating Travis fucking Stoll.”

“That is somehow even weirder than you fucking a guy,” Cecil says.

“I think it would be best for you to just… move on from this,” Lou says, back to the subject at hand. “Use it as a learning experience and carry on with your life. He’s an idiot if he’s going to let this stop him from seeing you. It’s his loss, Will. Plus now you’ve doubled your chances of getting a date which, let’s be honest, you really needed.”

He laughs and kicks her. “I’ve had loads of dates, thank you.” Lou flicks his forehead.

He still isn’t sure what he’s going to do about this whole situation, despite the advice. The consensus seems to be to forget about Nico di Angelo, but Will doesn’t think he can just do that, and not just because he’s an overly sentimental person. Will is never going to forget about the first girl he slept with (it was eleventh grade and her name had been Lacy, they had been dating for seven months, she was blonde and always smelled like raspberries despite the fact that she never actually ate raspberries, and she kept her shirt on the whole time), and so it seems unlikely that he will forget the first guy he slept with. But even just this is already helping, the three of them relaxing and poking fun at each other. Will’s life had been so fucked up for the past few weeks, and it feels good to get back to things he was used to, the three of them just hanging out. It was good to know that no matter what shit went down, there would always be something familiar in his life. Something he could count on.

“Put it behind you, Will. Do _not_ make a comment, Cecil, I swear to God,” she adds. Cecil laughs.

“Yeah, okay,” Will says. “I’ll put it behind me.”

* * *

Will does not put it behind him.

 **(7:18)** I’m really sorry. Honestly. That’s not how I meant that

 **(7:19)** I didn’t just use you as my first Big Gay Experience

Nico does not text him back.

“Let it go. _Let it go.”_

“Stop fucking singing at me, Cecil.”

After two days of no answer, Will decides that he should listen to Lou Ellen and Cecil and put it behind him. He’s shoving meaning where there is none, and there’s no use in sitting around. It happened, and it was important, and Will is never going to forget about it, but it’s time to step back and accept that some things just aren’t going to work out. He barely knew the guy, anyway.

He had more important things to worry about, anyway.

It works, for the most part. Will puts it behind him, except for one thing. He holds no illusions about mending the relationship, whatever the hell the relationship had been, but he at least wants to know what the hell had happened. He likely will never get over Nico di Angelo, in the same way he never really got over Lisa Mendoza, who broke his heart in ninth grade.

So once the weekend comes he decides to make one last visit, to try and figure out just what the fuck he had done.

* * *

He is uncharacteristically scheduled for a morning shift on Friday so he has to skip lunch with Lou Ellen. Today is one of those awful days when he has a shift from each job, so after working a short shift at the drug store he runs back, showers quickly once again, switches uniforms, and heads to Apollo’s.

He hates these days more than he hates any other day. Even more than he hates Thursdays.

By the end of his shift he doesn’t really want to go to Nico’s, but he’s already there, and if he chickens out now he’s just going to keep chickening out. So he drives the short way to Nico’s apartment, psyches himself up during the elevator ride, and only hesitates a little bit when he finally gets to the door.

He knocks. He waits.

When the door opens his heart is threatening to beat out of his chest, but he sees, very quickly, that it is not Nico who opens it.

“Hey,” Jason says. Will nods.

“Is, uh. Is Nico here?”

Jason shakes his head. “He went down to see his dad this weekend.”

“Oh.” There went that plan. He waits for Jason to say something, or tell him to leave, or anything, but nothing comes, he just continues to lean against the doorframe and study Will with interest. “Did Nico tell you what happened?” Will finally asks. Jason snorts.

“Nico doesn’t tell me a damn thing. All I know is something happened.” He looks at Will expectantly, as if waiting for him to explain. Will isn’t sure what to do. On the one hand, Jason might be able to provide some insight on what had happened, but on the other hand, if he tells Jason he is put at risk of facing the ire of Nico’s best friend.

“I told him he was the first guy I had ever slept with,” he finally says. “And that he was the first guy I had ever really had feelings for.” Jason sighs.

“Yeah, that’d do it,” he mutters. “Look, I can’t say much. Nico is a secretive person. But he is also a jumpy person. There wasn’t much you can do. It takes years to figure out what makes Nico tick. God knows I still don’t know half the time.”

“But is it… I mean…”

Jason seems to catch his drift. He scratches his nose and looks at Will apologetically. “Nico doesn’t forgive easily. Grudges are… kind of his thing.”

Will doesn’t really know what to say to this, although to be honest he had more or less expected that. He had come here to get answers, and he did, sort of. Just because they weren’t the answers he wanted didn’t mean they weren’t answers.

“Okay. Well, uh. Thank you for talking to me.”

“I was rooting for you,” Jason says unexpectedly. “Nico… well. He deserves it. Whatever it was.” And with that puzzling statement, Jason nods goodbye to Will and heads back inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember when katie gardner turned into miranda for literally no reason because rick has no consistency ever lmao
> 
> Edit: okay yes I have been told Katie still exists but in my defence why would you make two ppl have the same last name that's just confusing I get it daughters of Demeter gardening hahaha I stand by my mistake


	9. Favours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW SORRY ABOUT THE DELAY work is hell

The next morning he gets a text from Nico, far earlier than he had expected Nico to be up. He wonders where his father lives and if there’s some kind of time difference.

**From: Nico di Angelo**

**(9:13)** you had no right to do that

 **(9:14)** you had no right to talk to Jason

**To: Nico di Angelo**

**(9:16)** I didn’t go there to talk to Jason, I went to try to talk to you, but you weren’t there

**From: Nico di Angelo**

**(9:18)** just leave it, okay? This was supposed to be a one night stand, let’s just… stop trying to make it more than it should be

Will puts his phone in his pocket. If Nico wanted him to leave it, he’d leave it. He knows a hopeless case when he sees one, and he firmly believes that if you’re the only one putting effort into a relationship, the relationship isn’t going anywhere.

Cecil is still snoring in the bed next to him. Today is a blissful day off, and his original plan had been to go over his notes again, like usual, but something stops him, so instead of shoving his textbooks in his bag, he chucks one of his notebooks at Cecil’s head. Cecil jerks awake with a shriek.

“Jesus, Will!”

“C’mon. Let’s go out.”

“It’s fucking nine-thirty, Solace.”

“Cecil.”

Cecil must sense something in his tone, because he gets up. He grumbles the whole time and he keeps shooting dirty looks at Will, but he gets up nonetheless.

Will calls Lou Ellen while Cecil is showering, and by the time he’s ready Lou is waiting downstairs.

“Hey, do you think Apollo’s would serve us?” Lou asks.

“It’s not even open yet, Lou.”

“Yeah, but you get perks, right?”

Will rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling.

They end up heading to one of those hole in the wall restaurants that seems to exist solely for brunch. He and Cecil stuff their faces on scrambled eggs and bacon while Lou Ellen flirts incessantly with the waitress. Cecil watches this with interest; Will just eats.

“Did you know Lou Ellen was so smooth?” Cecil mutters to him. Will shrugs.

“Statistically one of us was bound to be good with women.”

Cecil laughs and steals a piece of bacon off of his plate, which Will promptly yanks right back out of his hand.

“So I have decided to put Nico di Angelo behind me. Do _not_ make an anal sex joke, Cecil.”

Cecil laughs, while Lou hums in approval. “I think that’s best. He kind of seemed like a jackass anyway, Will. I can see if Nyssa has any siblings!”

“Who?”

“Our _waitress,_ dummy, don’t you pay attention?”

“I think you’re paying enough attention for all of us, Lou.” Lou flips him off, but she leaves her phone number on the receipt, anyway, and she smiles all the way home.

* * *

Time passes, and things start getting back to normal, with a few exceptions. Lou and the waitress, Nyssa, start hanging out more, and in an attempt to include her friends Lou starts bringing her around. She’s a nice girl, a mechanic’s apprentice who waitresses on the side. Lou is utterly smitten. Katie Gardiner texts him asking if they could be friends and Will replies saying not yet, but it’s still something. And Will mostly gets over Nico di Angelo, accepting that some things just aren’t meant to be.

And then he gets a phone call.

 _Nico di Angelo,_ says the caller ID, and Will stares at it before showing it to Cecil.

“Don’t answer it,” Cecil says. Will gives him a look. “I’m serious, Will. The guy’s nothing but trouble.”

“It could be important.”

“What the fuck could possibly be so important that warrants you talking to him again? Send it to voicemail.”

Will sighs, stares at the name, and then answers it, ignoring the angry noise that erupts from Cecil.

“Hello?”

“Okay. I know you’re probably mad. And also that you probably don’t want to even deal with me anymore. But I – I need a favour. And I know that’s really fucking rich coming from me and that you owe me jack shit but Jason is in a really tight spot right now and he needs my help and I – the only one I know who could help me was you so even if you don’t want to help me at least help Jason.”

Cecil is waving his arms and making a cut off motion with his hands. Will ignores this, too. “What do you need?”

“Your car.”

He is silent. He knows he should tell him no, that he owes Nico di Angelo nothing. The problem is this isn’t for Nico di Angelo. Will knows Nico must be really desperate to call him. He thinks about Captain America and the sad way he had said _I was rooting for you._

“Okay. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

When he hangs up Cecil is glaring. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s for his roommate.”

Cecil shakes his head. “This guy must be really fucking good in bed,” he says. Will does not dignify this with an answer.

When he gets to Nico’s apartment Nico is already waiting outside. He ducks into Will’s car, hair wet, droplets of rain running down his neck. Will can’t help but stare before he remembers the reason he was there and asks where they were going.

They make sort of small talk. Will is reminded of how bad Nico is at it. He thanks him, and Will brushes it off, and he thinks he might even make a crack about his car, but he can’t be sure, because the car ride consists mostly of his mouth going without him paying attention and his brain tuned into every move Nico makes, from the way he keeps twisting his ring around his finger to the nervous intakes of breath every time they hit a bump or pothole.

The emergency is this: Jason’s girlfriend had proposed to him at a restaurant downtown, and he had holed himself up in the men’s bathroom while waiting for Nico to find a way to get the ring he had apparently bought months ago to the restaurant. Will had applied to the Lotus but had ultimately decided it was too far away from campus, so he knew where it was. When they arrive Nico calls Jason to tell him they were there, and even though Will only heard one side of the conversation, he was able to deduce that someone needed to bring the ring inside, and if Nico went, Piper would recognize him.

So Will offers to bring the ring in, because Will is a sucker like that.

Nico hands him the ring. “Thank you,” he says.

“Don’t worry. He deserves it.”

Oh, Cecil would be so proud of him. Nico recoils and Will tries not to feel guilty. After the shit Nico put him through, Will thinks he deserves _one_ shot, at least.

The Lotus is a fancy hotel that smelled very floral. All of the employees were intimidatingly beautiful. One of them smiles at Will when he enters, and he smiles back, but he continues into the restaurant as if he knew where he was going. He locates the bathrooms quickly and enters, to find Jason anxiously pacing up and down. He looks up when Will opens the door and he looks so utterly relieved Will kind of thinks he might kiss him.

“You’re a life saver. Honestly. I love you. Jesus Christ.” He takes the ring, pulls Will in for a hug, and then opens the box to make sure everything was all right. The ring is fucking gorgeous, and once again Will wonders where the fuck he and Nico get all their money from.

“Good luck,” he tells Jason. Jason hugs him again, flashes him a thumbs up, and then runs out the door.

Will makes his way back out to his car. He climbs in and tells Nico, “All set. Jason looked like a wreck. I thought he was going to kiss me when I gave him the ring.”

“Thank you. Again. You really didn’t have to do this.”

Will just shrugs. “It’s okay. I don’t mind. I wasn’t really doing anything, anyway.” Because that sounds better than _you called and I ran out to meet you because I’m a sappy idiot._

The ride home is quiet and slightly (very) awkward. The radio plays lightly in the background but Will can’t concentrate on any of the words. As he pulls into the building’s parking lot he makes a decision and parks the car in the guest parking, instead of just letting Nico out. They sit quietly for a few moments, listening to the sound of Will’s engine struggling to stay alive, until Nico opens his mouth and takes a breath to speak.

“If you say thank you one more time I’m going to kill you,” Will says.

“Sorry,” Nico mutters, and then he says, “Well, uh. Bye.”

“Nico, wait.”

Lou Mom has morphed into Cecil, who is currently flipping him off inside his head. Will thinks there might be something seriously wrong with him. Nico sits back down and finally makes eye contact. Will had forgotten how dark and expressive his eyes were.                                                                                                                                                          

“I don’t want us to stop talking. I’m – I’m sorry for what I did and for what I said but it’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be.”

To his surprise, Nico says, “I know.” Even Mind-Cecil seems confused. “I guess I kind of…” he trails off, and Will can’t even guess what he’s thinking. He has a funny feeling that he could know Nico for years and he still wouldn’t know what he was thinking. Eventually he says, “I’m always waiting for people to leave me.”

He’s afraid of rejection. That’s something Will can understand.

“I didn’t want to leave. I never did.” He tries to keep the accusation of _you made me_ out of his voice, but judging from Nico’s expression he thinks he probably didn’t succeed. “I do like you,” he adds. “All those things I said were true.” He is aware that he is putting his heart right on the table in front of them, laying it all out for Nico to see, something he hasn’t done since Katie. But something tells him this will be worth it.

Nico doesn’t answer. He looks a little lost in his head, like he has his own little Lou Mom yapping at him. Will gives him a few moments before asking, “Nico?” Still nothing, so he tries again. “Nico?”

“Do you want to come upstairs?” He asks suddenly. Will turns off the car immediately, and inwardly grimaces at how overeager he probably seems. But he’s already accepted that he has completely lost any semblance of chill when it comes to Nico di Angelo, so he just follows Nico upstairs, sitting on the other side of the couch from where Nico sits up and pulls his knees to his chest. Will waits for him to talk.

“I want – I want to tell you why what you said set me off so much. Why it had that effect on me. I think I probably owe it to you.” Will waits, eager despite himself. “When I told you I came out in high school – that’s not entirely the truth.” And so Nico tells him the story, and Will listens in horror as he speaks. He tells him about his ninth grade year and a boy who kissed him, a boy who had later stood up on top of the lunch table and told the whole school that Nico di Angelo had tried to kiss him, called him names as everyone laughed. Nico had fled, but he was cornered by a group of bullies, before Jason (Captain America in more than looks) showed up to defend him.

Will lets out a shaky breath, unable to hold in a reaction any longer. “Christ.”

“When you told me what you did, I felt fourteen again. Like you didn’t actually like me at all. Like this was just one other guy who was going to stand on the cafeteria table and hurt me.”

Will stares at him. He knows he has to play this a specific way, because Nico seems like the kind of person who doesn’t take well to pity. Eventually he decides to try and lighten the mood, somehow, so he says, “I'm afraid of heights. I couldn't even stand on a table without freaking out.”

Nico blinks, and then, just like Will had hoped, he laughs. “That’s not the reaction I was expecting from you.”

“Sorry,” he says, even though he’s not.

“No, it’s okay. I prefer it to… I dunno. Pity, I guess.”

Will makes that down as a success in his book. Maybe he’s starting to understand Nico more. “I don’t pity you. But if you tell me his name and information, if I ever come across him on the operating table I may be able to accidentally replace his heart with a soda can.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Nico says with a little smirk, unfolding his legs. Will can physically see him relax. “I’m sorry I can be so difficult,” he says, with a hint of embarrassment. Will shifts slightly closer.

“You’re not. Honestly. I’ve dealt with people way more difficult than you. You’re pretty much a walk in the park.”

“Let’s not exaggerate.” And it is an exaggeration, kind of. Will has met plenty of difficult people – he worked in retail, for God’s sake – but he had never wanted to be around one of them as much as he wanted to be around Nico.

“No, really,” he continues, because he likes seeing that shy smile, like Nico doesn’t want Will to see that he’s happy. “You act all brooding and complicated but you’re really not. You’re not nearly as tough as you think you are. I’ve faced kittens tougher than you –”

A pillow hits him in the face. Will doesn’t know what it is with Nico and pillow fights. “Don’t worry,” he says with a laugh. “I won’t tell anyone your secret.”

“Get out of my apartment, Solace.”

Will can hear the humour in his voice, but he gets up anyway, a plan forming in his mind. “If you insist,” he says, walking past Nico as if he were totally ready to leave. Nico grabs his wrist.

“Fine, call my bluff. Dick.”

Will goes to sit back down, but Nico doesn’t let go of his wrist, and Will pushes closer, and he feels Nico’s hand tighten on his wrist as their lips meet once again. It’s so much better sober; Nico pulls him so that Will has to shift, and he is cursing this tiny couch as Nico kisses him back frantically and –

And Will falls off the couch.

“Crap,” he mutters, and Nico laughs at him, loud and unrestrained, and Will can’t help but smile. “That was significantly less romantic than I had intended it to be.” He rubs his knee as Nico continues to laugh. “Stop laughing at me,” he says, as if he didn’t love hearing it. Nico grabs his hand.

“I’m sorry,” he says, not sounding very sorry at all. “I’ve been telling Jason we’ve needed a new couch for ages.”

Will secretly thinks that two people who are clearly so rich should just suck it up and buy a new couch, but he keeps his mouth shut.

“Guess that mood’s kind of been ruined,” he says, but Nico just shrugs.

“That’s okay,” he says, and Will agrees. Because here’s the scary thing – as much as he loves kissing Nico di Angelo, he thinks he probably likes being around him just as much.

God, he’s fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally!! finally i have done most of the obligatory scenes and can start writing new scenes with them are you as excited as i am???????? probably not because i am VERY excited


	10. Tartarus

_I’ll be home soon. You might want to hide out in your room._

That was the text Nico had received about ten minutes ago from Jason. Nico had rolled his eyes and stood up. “Do you want to stay?”

“If you want me in your room again that badly you could just ask.”

Nico had glared and stalked off to his room. Will had laughed and followed.

“Okay, I have an idea,” he says as he sits down.

“I’m concerned.”

“You’re dramatic, is what you are.” Nico looks slightly offended, but Will plows on. “Twenty questions.”

“Excuse me?”

“Twenty questions! To like, learn shit about each other.”

“Absolutely not.”

“What not?”

“It’s… far too John Hughes-ish.”

“What is it with you and John Hughes? That’s twice you’ve mentioned him.”

“Shut up.”

“You’re a buzzkill.”

“That is not the first time I’ve been called that, and it will not be the last.”

Will laughed.

“Okay, fine. I’ll ask questions, and you can choose to answer them if you want to.”

“This seems unnecessary.”

“Look, you seem kind of… private. I’m just trying to get to know you.”

“Fine, fine. But I reserve the right to tell you to fuck off.”

“I expected nothing less.”

This is what he learns about Nico di Angelo: he thinks the saddest movie ever is _Pokemon: the First Movie,_ which Will thinks is utterly ridiculous. His favourite movie is _Mulan,_ which isn’t nearly as embarrassing as Will’s favourite movie, but _A Walk to Remember_ is a fucking beautiful movie, all right? He clearly has family issues, judging from his answer (“Family?” “Yes.”).

Before Will can get anything else out of Nico, there is a crash from the next room and what sounds like a scream. Nico springs up from the bed (where they had been about to kiss again – Will tries not to be too bitter) and out of his room, banging on the door of what Will assumes must be his roommate’s.

“Piper? Are you okay? Can I come in?”

A very pretty girl opens the door, a large smile on her face, wearing an oversized shirt. Will peers in past them to see Jason sitting on the ground and rubbing his head, looking upset.

“What happened?” Nico asks. Piper giggles.

“Jason fell off the bed.”

Nico voices what Will was thinking: “What kind of weird sex were you having that Jason fell off the _bed?”_

Piper laughs again, evidently incredibly happy after getting engaged, and drags Nico into a hug. Will didn’t think there was ever anyone brave enough to just grab Nico for a hug.

“Jason told me you’ve been hiding the ring for months,” she says. Nico says something in reply to this, but Will can’t really hear, since he’s facing away and is quiet by nature.

“You’re Will!” Piper suddenly says, letting go of Nico and grabbing Will, instead, pulling him to her and hugging him in a grip that Will hadn’t thought a woman of her size was capable of. Seriously, he could barely breathe.

“No problem,” he manages to say.

Nico gives his congratulations to Jason, getting one last shot in at him over his botched proposal. They make plans to go to a bar downtown, and to Will’s utter surprise Piper turns to him and asks, “Are you going to come, too, Will?”

“Um. I guess. If I’m invited.”

“Of course you are! Get dressed, Nico, we’re leaving soon.”

“I am dressed,” Nico says. Piper gives him a look.

“You know how dark it is in Tartarus. If you dress like that no one will be able to find you.”

Will lets out a snort that Nico apparently doesn’t appreciate, judging from the glare, and he disappears into his room to get ready, leaving Will alone with Jason and a half dressed Piper.

“So,” Piper says, drawing out the word. “You’re Will. Jason’s told me all about you. It’s almost like you slept with him, but God knows Nico doesn’t tell anyone a goddamn thing.”

“I can still fucking hear you, you know,” Nico shouts through the door. Piper waves a dismissive hand in that direction.

“I’m so happy you guys sorted it out! And all because Jason doesn’t know how to propose.”

Jason makes an affronted noise. “Hey, I –”

Piper waves him off, too. Before Will has to figure out how to respond to this, Nico emerges, wearing something that is only marginally less dark. Piper sighs.

“That’s the best I’m going to get out of you, isn’t it?” She says.

“Don’t worry, we’ll use the buddy system so we don’t lose him in the dark,” Will says with a wink. Nico shakes his head.

“Dork,” he mutters.

They bus there, since Piper argues that Will shouldn’t have to be designated driver. Him and Nico take a seat and Piper and Jason sit in front of them, turned around so they can talk.

Once again Will is astonished at Nico’s friends, but he’s starting to understand it more. Nico’s friends draw him out of himself; if Nico had befriended people like him, he would probably never come out of his shell. But being friends with people so unlike him means Nico can’t retreat into himself.

Will had never been to Tartarus, but he had heard of it. It was widely known as the sketchiest bar around, but it’s laxness about carding meant it was a popular spot for underage college students. When they arrive there are four people waiting for them already, and although Nico doesn’t introduce them, he tells Will quietly who they are. Annabeth Chase is the pretty blonde who grabs Piper tightly and links their arms together. Percy Jackson is her husband. He is tall and very attractive, and him and Jason grab each other and rock back in forth. Will had already met Frank Zhang, in a way, and of course there was Nico’s sister, who smiles warmly at him when she sees him.

When they get into the bar all the tables are taken, but Annabeth and Piper go up to a few people at one of the larger tables, and after a few moments they get up and leave. Will has no idea what the hell they said, but he knows that he’s slightly afraid of them both.

They all squeeze into the table, Will between Nico and Frank, and as they’re all getting settled Leo runs up. Apparently being late means drink duty.

Will isn’t shy, but the group seems so in sync with each other that he doesn’t want to insert himself. He is content with just watching them interact with each other, the easy way they poke fun at each other, how even Nico comes out of his shell around them. Percy talks to him briefly, making a comment about weddings, and Will is slightly embarrassed in a weirdly warm way. He understands how Nico, secretive, moody Nico, would be friends with all these people. Will can see the allure of them immediately. It’s like being part of a secret club.

Will sits back and watches them interact. Leo comes back proclaiming he is in love, and judging from the way everyone reacts he has a feeling this is a common occurrence. Piper fills him in briefly on her crazy mother, and Percy asks him who the best man at his and Nico’s wedding should be. He blushes, but he’s smiling.

He learns that Percy and Nico have known each other the longest, although Jason seems to think that breaking someone’s nose outweighs that. He learns that Leo has known Jason longest, but he and Percy have some kind of weird homoerotic bro relationship that neither of them attempt to deny. He learns Jason’s sister travels with her girlfriend all around the world.

And he learns, finally, what he’s always suspected – Nico is rich.

As they are leaving the bar Leo grabs Jason’s shoulder to try and boost him up, peering over the crowd to get one last look at the bartender. Will – who is much taller than Leo – follows his gaze and sees a very pretty girl with a long braid that is flipped over her shoulder.

Once outside everyone says their goodbyes, hugging Piper once again. Percy grabs Nico into what looks like a bone crushing hug and says something in his ear that has him blushing. On the bus ride back Piper falls asleep on Jason’s shoulder, and Nico immediately apologizes for the night.

“I like your friends,” Will says. “They scared the hell out of me, but I liked them.”

Nico fills him in on things that he hadn’t understood. He explains where he met everyone, tells him what Percy’s comment about poker had meant – “My father and his have known each other for… years. They had a poker game literally decades ago. Percy’s dad won, but my dad swears he cheated. They’ve literally been bitching about this poker game for 25 years.”

Will settles back against the seat, steels himself, and asks what he had been wondering for weeks.

“When we… when we met again, at the clinic. You mentioned that you – that you hadn’t had friends for a long time.” Nico breathes in quickly. “I just… what happened? Why were you… alone?”

Nico is quiet for a long time, deep in thought. Eventually he says, “I just… didn’t get along well with other people.” His answer is vague, and his voice is hard, and Will quickly understands that this is a not a conversation Nico is ready to have.

So he switches topics.

“So. You’re rich?”

Nico scowls. “Have you heard of Asphodel Funeral Homes?”

“I think I might have seen some commercials.”

“Yeah, well, my dad owns them. All of them. Because, as he says, the one business you can count on to stay strong is death.”

And Will can’t help it – he laughs. He laughs a lot, actually. Nico stares at him in confusion.

“What?”

“It’s just – are you trying to tell me that Nico di Angelo, emo vampire boy who doesn’t understand the concept of colour, comes from a family that owns funeral homes? There’s no way you’re a real human being. You’re some kind of caricature of the Grim Reaper, or something.”

“Fuck off!”

Will pokes him lightly. “You’re definitely not real. There’s no way.”

Nico slaps his hand away as Will continues to poke him. “Would you stop?”

“I’m just trying to make sure you’re real. You can never be too careful.” He leans in closer, fingers lightly probing at the hem of Nico’s shirt, and finally, finally, Nico leans forward, too, and Will is able to kiss him again. The kiss is gentle, and the complete opposite of what Will wants (which is more or less to push Nico down on these uncomfortable bus seats and kiss him hard), but he is just happy they are kissing.

“I can hear you, you know,” Jason says, and Nico smiles.

Back at the apartment Nico invites him up, since Will is too drunk to drive. Unsure of what the etiquette in this situation would be, Will debates the couch, but Nico shoots that idea down immediately.

He climbs in beside Nico in the bed, and he’s sure he’s not the only one who notices the slight awkwardness that springs up between them, which is, frankly, ridiculous. Will has lived through more with this guy in the few weeks that they’ve known each other than he’s had with some of his girlfriends.

Life with Nico, he knows, will be anything but dull, but Will has a feeling he’s going to like it.

* * *

He wakes up, fumbles for his phone on the night stand, and checks the time. It’s about eight, slightly later than Will normally wakes up, and he sees, to his dismay, three missed calls from Cecil, one from Lou, and a text from Cecil that says _if this guy murders you tonight it’s your own damn fault and I’m not going to your funeral._

Shit. He had been so caught up in everything that happened yesterday that he had forgotten to check in with Cecil. Massive bad friend moment.

He shakes Nico awake gently to say goodbye. Nico is clearly not a morning person, judging from the grunts, but Will leans forward and kisses him anyway. Nico kisses him back, and Will tests the waters by saying, “Can you do me a favour?”

“Does it involve moving?”

Honestly. _So dramatic._

“No.”

“Then sure.”

“Don’t get distant again. If I ever say anything that sets you off let me know, okay? Don’t just freeze me out.”

Nico meets his eyes, then nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Sure.”

Will smiles. “I’ll see you, okay?”

Nico nods. Will leaves the room, sends a quick text to Cecil – _I’m sorry I’m on my way home please don’t kill me I’m a bad friend I know I’m sorry –_ before heading back downstairs, trying his damn hardest not to smile the whole way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops i lied NOW i can start writing new scenes


	11. Guilt Trips

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> f i l l e r

To his surprise, Cecil is awake when he gets back. He shoots him a sheepish look as Cecil glares.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” he says. Will grimaces and heads across the room to his bed, sitting down on it.

“I’m sorry,” he says, although it falls flat.

“You better have a really good excuse for this, Solace.”

Will runs a hand over his face. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “I – I had to bring a ring to his roommate, and then we went back to his place, and he told me what happened, and it – it was a pretty good reason for why he freaked out, honestly, lots of shit happened to him, and then, well, his roommate came home and we all went to a bar to celebrate their engagement and then I was drunk and couldn’t drive and I stayed the night and – I’m sorry,” he finishes, again. Cecil’s eyes are narrowed.

“You’re back with him, aren’t you?”

“I don’t think we were ever really together in the first place,” he says.

“Oh my fucking God, Will.”

“You don’t even know him, Cecil.”

“I don’t need to, because I know _you,_ and you were fucking miserable.”

“I know, I know. But we talked, and he apologized, and I told him – I told him never to do that again, that he has to talk to me.”

Cecil is still glaring.

“You don’t even know him, Cecil.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You’re being a little extreme, don’t you think?”

“Do you remember you after Katie? And that was mutual. I just have a really bad feeling about this, Will.”

“You’re not allowed to make any decisions until you’ve met him.”

“Introduce him to Lou Ellen. I trust her.”

Will rolls his eyes. “You’re being an idiot.”

“I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

Will looks at him. “Wow, Cecil. How long have you been in love with me?”

Cecil flips him off, but Will can tell he’s trying to hold back a smile. “Fuck you, Solace.”

Will stands up and sits beside Cecil. “You should have told me, Cecil. Let me text Nico, I’ll tell him it won’t work between us because –” Cecil kicks him off his bed and Will falls to the floor, laughing.

“That’s the last time I show any concern for your wellbeing,” he says, but he can’t quite hide his amusement. Will blows him a kiss before getting up off the floor.

“I gotta run, I’m gonna be late for work. I’ll talk to you when I get back, okay? And I am sorry, honestly.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Cecil mutters, and Will knows he’s forgiven.

* * *

On his way to the drug store he gets a call. Because his car is too old to even know what Bluetooth is, he’s forced to ignore it until he gets to work. When he parks he sees it was his mother. He calls her back.

“Hi, Mom. Sorry, I was driving.”

“Hello, Will. Are you coming home for Thanksgiving.”

Oh, great. He was so not ready to have this conversation.

“Um,” he starts. “Well, see, Apollo’s is staying open, see, and they asked who would be available to work, and I would get holiday pay _and_ time and a half, so I –”

“William.” Uh oh. That was never a good sign. “Are you telling me that you are working all Thanksgiving weekend.”

“I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t want to, honestly, but I can’t pass that up.”

“Well,” she says, and Will knows he is about to get a grade A guilt trip. “I hope your paycheck is worth choosing your family over.”

“That’s not fair, Mom. You know as well as I do how important it is for me to save.”

“Fine,” she says. “Ask Lou Ellen and Cecil if they would like to come anyway. I would appreciate _some_ company.”

“Mom –”

“Let me know, Will. I love you, goodbye.”

She hangs up. Will lets his head drop onto the head rest. “Fuck,” he mutters.

He opens the group chat he has with Lou and Cecil and sees that Lou had once again named it to _A lesbian, an asexual, and a bi guy walk into a bar._ He doesn’t even bother to change it.

**To: Lou Ellen; Cecil**

**(9:51)** My mother wants to know if you two want to go over for Thanksgiving

**From: Lou Ellen**

**(9:52)** I thought you were working all weekend?

**To: Lou Ellen; Cecil**

**(9:52)** Oh, I am

**From: Cecil**

**(9:53)** On a scale from 1 to that time she caught you with a pack of cigarettes in tenth grade, how bad was the guilt trip

**To: Lou Ellen; Cecil**

**(9:53)** Way worse, because I didn’t have you to blame it on this time

**From: Lou Ellen**

**(9:54)** Regardless I’m so down for Thanksgiving at the Solace household, I’ll text your mom

**To: Lou Ellen; Cecil**

**(9:54)** Fucking great

**From: Lou Ellen**

**(9:55)** Don’t be bitter, Will. I’ll eat extra turkey for you

Will doesn’t answer this.

He’s in a bad mood throughout his whole shift, and everyone can tell. His coworkers give him a wide berth and one of his customers tells him smugly that he’s going to give him a bad review on the online survey, not that Will cares. The good mood that had come from his night with Nico is long gone, replaced with a feeling of guilt and annoyance that his mother doesn’t understand where he’s coming from. He gets why she’s upset – the university isn’t, in reality, that far from his house, close enough that in the summers he commutes in order to keep an income (even though it sucks), but Will didn’t get a lot of time off that allowed him to go see his mother. And it’s not that Will doesn’t want to go home for Thanksgiving, it’s just that his mother should know how much he needs this. Will has worked his whole life for what he wants and he can’t let such a good opportunity pass him by.

But more than the annoyance is the guilt. His mother has done so much for him, and they rarely saw each other. She had probably been looking forward to Thanksgiving, and he hadn’t even had the courage to tell her upfront that he was working.

“Will?”

“What?” He snaps. Jake takes a step back.

“Manager wants to know if you want to go home early. You like kind of… well. You know.”

Will knows. And it feels pretty hypocritical to go home three hours early when he’s blowing off Thanksgiving because of money, but all he really wants to do right now is go home, turn off the lights, and throw the blankets over his head.

“Yeah, okay,” he says. “Thanks.”

Jake wisely doesn’t respond.

When he gets home Cecil isn’t there, and Will does what he wanted to – in bed, lights off, blankets over his head – for exactly six minutes, before he starts getting restless. Will is so used to doing things that it’s difficult for him to just sit there. He opens one of his text books and studies for a few minutes before giving up and texting Nico.

**To: Nico di Angelo**

**(3:34)** Would it seem super weird and clingy to ask if you wanted to hang out today

**From: Nico di Angelo**

**(3:36)** Probably

**(3:36)** What do you want to do

* * *

Because Will has a car and Nico does not, Will heads over to Nico’s apartment. Will is instructed to bring over a large coffee, black, and a medium coffee with so much sugar Will experiences genuine fear for Jason Grace’s health. He tries not to be too upset that Jason will apparently be there, because as much as he likes Nico’s friends, he really wants to be alone with him again. And not just for the kissing, honestly.

He needn’t worry. When he rings up for them to unlock the door Jason buzzes him in, but when he gets to their apartment Jason grabs the coffee out of his hand, thanks him profusely, and then says goodbye to them both as he heads out to meet Piper and Leo.

Nico is halfway through a bowl of ice cream and Will sits across from him at the table. “I can’t believe he both wakes up at six in the morning to go jogging and also takes four sugars in his coffee.”

“Jason Grace, walking paradox. Pinnacle of health, obsessed with sugar. Football captain, my best friend.”

“You know the proper thing a good host would do is offer his guest some ice cream, too.”

Nico raises an eyebrow. “Pretty sure you know where the freezer is, Solace.”

“My mother raised me better than to just help myself to someone’s food.”

“I’m giving you permission,” he says dryly. Will smiles and scoops some mint ice cream into a bowl, sitting across from Nico once again. They sit in silence while eating. Nico finishes first and tips his chair backwards on two legs, watching Will idly while occasionally texting.

“So what’s the plan?” Will eventually asks.

“Damn, I forgot to print the itinerary. Whoops.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a little sarcastic?”

“Never,” Nico says with a smirk. Will rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. It doesn’t make any sense that someone like Nico should lift his spirits after the day he’s had, but he is. Realistically Will hasn’t really known him that long, but he’s getting the feeling, just from the interactions he’s had with him and watching Nico with his friends, that Nico isn’t nearly as moody as he likes to pretend.

He finishes his ice cream, rinses it in the sink, and then puts it in the dishwasher, and when he turns back Nico is on the couch, watching game shows on TV.

“Are you trying to tell me,” he says, sitting to Nico, “that you have this nice of an apartment, but you couldn’t have sprung for a television stand?”

“You know how expensive text books are. I’m being thrifty.”

“Thrifty.”

“If you have any old textbooks you don’t want, you can donate them to a good cause.”

“Or I could sell them, and donate to an equally good cause, my wallet.”

“How _selfish.”_

Will snorts and kicks Nico lightly, who kicks him back. Will laughs, shifts, and then says, since he assumes he’s reading the signs properly, “Can I kiss you?”

To his disbelief, Nico rolls his eyes. “You don’t have to ask, idiot.”

“Sorry if you seem a little jumpy.”

Nico looks down, then up again. “You can kiss me,” he says finally.

So Will does. Nico drags him closer by the back of his neck and Will braces himself on the arm of the couch. He decides that for Christmas he’s going to buy them a new couch. He is dimly aware of the television in the background. He’s never made out with anyone with Family Feud in the background, but he’s not really registering anything except the loudness of Steve Harvey’s voice and the fact that there is a lot more yelling in Family Feud than he had originally thought.

They are interrupted by a vibrating. Will isn’t going to lie – it doesn’t feel totally unwelcome – but Nico swears, shifts, and pulls his phone out of his pocket.

He rolls his eyes but answers the phone anyway. Will shifts off of him. He’s slightly offended that Nico had stopped to answer the phone, but who knows, maybe it was important.

“What do you want, Percy?”

Will runs a thumb over his lips and barely listens to anything going on around him. Nico makes a lot of irritated sounding noises, there’s a lot of yelling coming from the television, but Will is barely paying attention to any of it.

“Sorry,” Nico says, and Will realizes he’s off the phone. “Percy’s an idiot.”

“It’s okay,” Will says. “I was enjoying the Feud.” Which is basically a lie, but he doesn’t want to tell Nico that he’s basically been sitting there freaking out over the fact that they keep kissing on a semi regular basis.

“Please don’t ever call it that.”

“That’s what the real fans call it.”

“Oh my God, Solace.”

“Can we apply to be on Family Feud?” He asks, because he’s starting to love that look Nico gives, but to his surprise all he says is, quite calmly, “You have to actually be related by blood or marriage.”

Will stares. “You’ve looked up the rules to being on Family Feud.”

Nico turns red. “No, I just – no I didn’t.”

“Oh my _God,_ you looked up how to get on Family Feud.”

Nico looks away. “Jason and I may have briefly considered it.”

“Oh my God. Oh my God.”

“It’s not that big a deal.”

“I’m just imagining you on Family Feud.”

“Fuck you, Solace,” Nico says, and to Will’s pleasure he grabs him again.

Shortly after they start kissing Nico’s phone rings again. He lets out an irritated noise, glances briefly at the caller ID, and then says, “It’s just Jason,” before turning back to Will.

Needless to say, his day has improved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cecil had a pack of cigarettes in high school because peer pressure is a hell of a thing which Will immediately confiscated. Unfortunately for him his mother found them and she had to call Cecil to check the story before she believed Will


	12. Thanksgiving

“So me and Cecil are going to your house for Thanksgiving.”

Will rolls his eyes, realizes Lou won’t be able to see this over the phone, and then says, “Great.”

“Look, Will, it would be an insult to the Pilgrims if no one got to experience your mother’s turkey this year. I’m doing this for you. I’m doing this for _America.”_

“I’m sure America thanks you, Lou.”

“So Cecil told me about your weekend,” she says. Will can’t tell anything from her voice, and he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like not being able to tell what Lou is feeling.

“What about it?” Will asks.

“I want to meet him,” Lou says. Will takes a bite of his bagel to give himself time to think.

“Oh,” is what he says. “Why?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” she says. Or maybe it’s Stupid Questions. “Someone’s got to meet him, and Cecil is determined to stay annoyed.”

“Why does someone need to meet him?”

“More importantly, why do you not want him to meet your friends?”

“Maybe I don’t want my friends to meet him.”

“Same thing, Will.”

“No it isn’t. I’m not afraid how Nico will act around you. I’m a little apprehensive about how you’ll act around him.”

“Please. What do you think I’m going to do? Bitch him out for treating you like shit and acting like a whiny pissbaby? _Kidding,”_ she says in response to Will’s affronted sound. “Look, I get it. The dude’s emotionally constipated. What happened that made him flip?”

“I… I don’t think I can really say.”

“Solace, if you don’t give me a damn good reason for why he did what he did, you can bet your ass you won’t want me to meet him.”

Will sighs and rubs at his eye. “You’re too overprotective.”

“I’m the perfect amount of overprotective. You’re thinking of Cecil, who refuses to meet him. I, at least, am willing to give him a chance.”

“You’re a saint,” he says sarcastically. Lou just hums in agreement.

“I mean it, Will, I want to meet him. And if you think that’ll scare him away or some bullshit like that then just… we’ll meet up and pretend we just ran into each other.”

“You’ve put way too much thought into this.”

“Make a fucking date with your not-boyfriend and text me the details, all right?”

“Yeah, okay, fine.”

“Thank you. Stop sulking, Will. Everything will be fine.”

Somehow, he’s having trouble believing her.

* * *

He and Nico set up another coffee date and, feeling almost like some kind of traitor, he texts Lou the details. They talk about nothing for exactly seven minutes (Lou’s idea) before Lou comes in, makes a huge show of walking past them and looking at the menu, before doing a double take.

“Will? I didn’t know you were here.”

He shoots her a glare. He never understood why she stopped doing drama.

“Hi, Lou.”

Nico is watching this with a vaguely uncomfortable expression on his face. Lou sits down beside Will and says, “You’re being rude, Will, introduce me to your friend.”

God, he hates her. He hates her he hates her he hates her. “This is…”

Shit, how was he supposed to introduce them? Lou and Cecil had been referring to him as Will’s not-boyfriend, but he couldn’t exactly say that. He sure as hell isn’t going to call him his boyfriend. But calling him just his friend doesn’t seem appropriate, either, not with the amount of making out they were doing lately. He falters briefly before ultimately just finishing with “Nico. This is Nico.”

Lou stares him up and down before saying, “Oh.” Will kind of wants to hit her. He can tell that whatever she was expecting, it wasn’t Nico. But she recovers quickly.

“I’m Lou Ellen,” she says, sticking her hand out authoritatively. Nico gives him a look before awkwardly taking Lou’s hand.

“Hi,” he says. His hand hangs almost limply in Lou’s, as if he is unwilling to grip hers back, like he is trying to get away with touching her as little as possible. Will can feel waves of discomfort coming from him, and that strange traitorous feeling fills him again.

“Me and Will have been friends for eons,” Lou says, dramatic as always. Will resists the urge to roll his eyes at her. “Ever since I corrected his math homework.”

“No one wants to hear that story, Lou.”

Lou Ellen ignores him. “So, Nico. What are you studying?”

Oh, great. Small talk. Lou was trying to make small talk. Because Nico was the king of small talk.

But, he thinks, as he starts feeling guilty, he had met Nico’s friends. Like, all of Nico’s friends, all at once, in a very intimidating environment, no less. Nico had put him through that, so why shouldn’t Nico meet Will’s friends? And it wasn’t even like he was introducing him to everyone, it was literally like Lou. There was no reason for him to feel bad about this. It was just like Tartarus.

Except, he thinks, Will had agreed to go to Tartarus. He was asked. Nico hadn’t blindsided him with it. And were they even at the point where it was time to meet each other’s friends? It had been a fluke that Will had met everyone, but if he hadn’t, would Nico introduce him to anyone? It hadn’t even been two months, yet. Everything seemed like it was moving so fast, and realistically Will knows that two months means nothing, but two months with Nico seems different than two months with everyone else. He thinks it might be because Nico is so closed off with everyone, it seems, and every day spent with him feels like more. Nico was all about choosing, and he had chosen Will, it seemed, despite everything, and that felt like something big. Something more than two months.

Or maybe he’s just making excuses for the fact that it’s only been two months and Will is already in deep.

“Lou,” he says, “I thought you were meeting Nyssa at her place.”

Lou Ellen raises her eyebrows. Will stares back. Nico picks at the skin around his fingernails.

“Right,” Lou finally says. “I forgot.” She stands. “It was good to meet you,” she says to Nico, who nods. She pats Will awkwardly on the cheek, says, “I’ll call you,” in an almost menacing way, and then walks out. Will waits for the door to shut behind her before turning back to Nico.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to spring that on you.”

“It’s fine,” Nico says, although Will can see the tension in his shoulders. “It’s not like you knew she was going to be here.” Oh, sure, make him feel even guiltier. “Besides, you met all my friends.”

“Yeah, but I agreed to it.”

Nico shrugs. “Honestly, it’s fine. I’m just not very good at small talk.”

“You’re not really good at any talk.”

Nico snorts. “Fuck off. I’m a great conversationalist.”

“It’s like talking to a wall. No, I’m lying, it’s like talking to a foreign exchange student who doesn’t speak any English but you get the feeling that he doesn’t like you anyway.”

“That was really descriptive, Solace.”

“You’re like an Italian exchange student. I’m going to call you Mario.”

“You will fucking not.”

“Your English is pretty good, Mario.”

“Chiamami cosí di nuovo e sei morto,” Nico says smoothly. Will groans.

“You’re playing dirty,” he says. “You’re not allowed to bust out the Italian in public. You know what it does to me.”

“Possiamo andare a casa mia se vuoi,” he says.

“I have no idea what that means but I’m pretty sure casa means house, so if you’re asking if we can go back to your place, the answer is yes.”

“Gee, Solace, you’re practically bilingual.”

“Don’t mock me, Mario.”

Nico laughs. It’s a sound he doesn’t get to hear often, but it’s a sound he loves. Nico has one of the nicest laughs he’s ever heard.

Nico stands up. “Come on, Luigi,” he says, and Will grins, following him outside.

“Mario and Luigi are brothers. That doesn’t really work with us.”

Nico shoots him a look. “Are you saying you’re Princess Peach?”

“If the crown fits.”

Nico shakes his head, but Will can see he’s trying not to smile. He grabs his wrist lightly and pulls him towards him, kissing him gently against his car. Nico kisses back, and any feelings of guilt Will had been feeling are promptly forgotten thanks to Nico’s fingers looped in his belt loops and his tongue in Will’s mouth.

* * *

**From: Lou Ellen**

**(8:23)** He’s not what I was expecting

**From: Cecil**

**(8:23)** What does that mean?

**From: Lou Ellen**

**(8:23)** He didn’t really seem like Will’s type

**To: Lou Ellen; Cecil**

**(8:24)** I don’t have a type

**From: Lou Ellen**

**(8:24)** I mean, he was attractive, but in a kind of anemic way

**To: Lou Ellen; Cecil**

**(8:24)** Oh my God

**From: Cecil**

**(8:25)** What the fuck does that mean

**From: Lou Ellen**

**(8:25)** You’d know exactly what it meant if you’d seen him

**To: Lou Ellen; Cecil**

**(8:25)** My break is over, please stop talking about my not-boyfriend when I’m not around to defend him

**From: Lou Ellen**

**(8:25)** You should give him some vitamin C Will

**To: Lou Ellen; Cecil**

**(8:26)** Iron is used to treat anemia

**From: Lou Ellen**

**(8:26)** Sorry Dr Solace

* * *

Thanksgiving comes and Will wakes up in an empty dorm room. He isn’t upset at Lou and Cecil for taking his mother up on her invitation. Lou’s father lived in Nebraska and she only went home for Christmas and summer. Cecil split his time between his parents, who were divorced, but he didn’t really get along well with either of them. Will’s mother was by far the best parental figure the three of them had, and she had unofficially adopted Will’s friends, treating them like her own. Her and Lou were a goddamn force to be reckoned with.

Around five he texts Nico to ask him to say he’s thankful for Will, but somehow he doubts Nico will follow through. Other than that he doesn’t talk to him.

He’s waiting for... something. He isn’t sure what. He hasn’t exactly done this before. Well, he has, but it’s different. It’s different because it’s a guy. It’s different because it’s Nico. It’s different because already Will is feeling like this is something more than he had ever expected. He told him about his absent father, for fuck’s sake. He feels like he’s waiting for some kind of cue from Nico, except he has no idea what that cue would even be. He knows he wants more than what they’ve been doing. It’s not that he doesn’t like the kissing, it’s just that he wants _more._ He wants... committment.

Oh. That’s a revelation.

Part of him thinks he’s moving a little fast. Part of him doesn’t care. All of him knows he’s barking up the wrong tree. Nico doesn’t really seem like an official kind of guy. Like, Will doesn’t think Nico would do anything with anyone else while him and Will were doing whatever the fuck they were doing, but he also doesn’t think that Nico is going to change his Facebook status, or anything.

For now he’ll take what he can get. Even if she phrased it poorly, Lou was right – Nico was pretty emotionally constipated. Will isn’t going to push him past his limits.

His shift at Apollo’s ends slightly before closing, and he is utterly exhausted. Kayla had gone home, but Austin had stayed to work, as well. Will drives him home before heading back to his dorm room. Part of him kind of wants to buy a turkey and have the world’s most depressing Thanksgiving dinner alone in his dorm room, but part of him also wants to go to bed and bemoan his life.

But when he gets upstairs and opens his door he is met with Lou, Cecil, his mother, and a lot – and he means a lot – of food.

“What the fu –”

“Watch your mouth, Will,” his mother says, before enveloping him in a hug. He hugs her back, looking over her shoulder at Lou Ellen and Cecil with a confused expression.

“We were never going to your parents house for Thanksgiving,” Lou says, as if this should have been obvious.

“Yeah, Jesus, what kind of friends do you think we are?”

“I plead the fifth on that,” he says. Lou flips him off.

“Your father wanted to come, but he had some work thing.”

“Oh, sure, he’s allowed to work without the guilt trip.”

“I see your father every day, Will. I rarely get to see you.”

“Guilt trip 2.0,” he says. She pats his face fondly.

When she says father, she means Will’s step-dad, but Alan was the only father Will knew. Will had no desire to meet his biological dad – Will already had a father. The only thing he kept of his biological dad was a picture in a drawer in his side table. Will looked exactly like him. He wasn’t exactly happy about that.

“Change out of that dirty uniform so we can have a proper dinner,” his mother says commandingly.

“Yes ma’am,” he says, smiling. He shoots Cecil and Lou Ellen a grateful look before grabbing a change of clothes so he can get ready for Thanksgiving with his family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the italian translates (according to google) as "call me that again and you're dead" and "we can go back to my house if you'd like"
> 
> Edit: thank you to Not_Human for correcting my Italian!


	13. Not-Boyfriend

Will can always tell the timeline of a semester by how early Cecil wakes up on weekends. At the beginning of term it is nearly impossible to get him out of bed before noon; during midterms he is normally awake, if not exactly functioning, by ten, ten thirty at the latest.

During finals, he was even able to tell whether Cecil’s exams were cumulative or not – eight in the morning for cumulative exams, nine if they weren’t.

But here he is, seven in the morning, and Cecil is right fucking there with him, and Will doesn’t know what to make of that.

“Why are you up so early?”

“You know that bullshit rule this fucking university has where you have to fucking take goddamn breadth requirements or whatever the fuck they’re called?”

Cecil also tended to swear a lot under stress.

“Yes.”

“Well my fucking brilliant mind decided to get them all out of the way in one fucking go, since I hadn’t done any yet, which means I have fucking stats and psychology on top of all my history classes. I may literally fucking die.”

Will watches as he yawns and takes a sip of the coffee he had brought up from the cafeteria.

“Merry Christmas,” Will says with a grin. Cecil lets out a sigh of frustration and slumps backwards on the bed.

* * *

Will’s exams are nicely spread out, which gives him lots of time to study, work, and even spend some time with Nico and his friends. Nyssa has become somewhat of a staple in his group of friends, but she’s friendly and funny so neither him nor Cecil mind much. Him and Lou go Christmas shopping together, because Lou hates surprises and insists on picking out her own Christmas presents. She even buys her own gift from Cecil, texting him the price so he could pay her back.

“You take all the magic and joy out of Christmas.”

“Christmas is a commercialized holiday.”

“Simmer down, there, Ebenezer Scrooge.”

“I can’t believe you just full named Scrooge.”

Will laughs, contemplating two books he’s holding and trying to figure out which one his father would prefer. “Which one of these incredibly long and probably horrifically dry historical books do you think my dad would prefer?”

“Which one do you think would make you fall asleep the quickest?”

He considers both books and then shakes the one in his left hand. “Definitely this one.” He throws it in the basket that’s hanging off Lou’s arm and moves on.

“Are you buying a gift for your not-boyfriend?”

Will sighs. “I don’t know. Do you think I should? Are you buying something for Nyssa?”

“Yes, but Nyssa and I are actually dating. Like, holding hands in public, making out in the back of movie theatres, changing your Facebook status dating.”

“When did that become such an integral part of relationships?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

Will scratches his nose. “I don’t know if I should. I don’t even know what I would get him. Do you think he’s going to buy me something?”

“Buy him iron tablets.”

“Would you shut the fuck up about anemia?”

Lou laughs and bumps him with her hip. “Bring it up in some vague way and see how he reacts.”

“Nico doesn’t react to anything.”

Lou laughs. “If he doesn’t want anything you have to split what you would have spent on him on me and Cecil.”

“For someone who doesn’t believe in the magic of Christmas you sure do want a lot of gifts.”

Lou doesn’t react to this, just throws something else in the basket that she wants.

* * *

Lou is in charge of keeping Cecil’s gifts, but Will has to hold everything else, so he shoves all the bags in a corner and tells Cecil, “You owe Lou forty bucks.”

Cecil looks at him incredulously. “I gave her a budget of twenty fucking dollars for her gift, what the fuck?”

“Hey, I told you that you should have come with us.”

“She’s fucking ridiculous.”

“Bet you’ll come next year, huh?”

Cecil mutters under his breath, searching through the bags to see what he got Lou, when Will’s text tone goes off. The number isn’t saved in his phone.

**From: Unknown Number**

**(6:33)** Dear Will, this is Hazel. I wanted to invite you to a Christmas party that we will be having before break. I wanted to personally invite you because God knows Nico wouldn’t. He’s glaring at me right now as we speak. I will let you know the details as soon as possible.

Will stares at the message. “Nico’s sister just invited me to a Christmas party.”

“That is so domestic,” Cecil says, still rummaging in the bags, looking at what Will had bought for everyone. Will keeps staring at his phone.

“Do you think this means I have to buy him a present?”

Cecil shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe you can buy him a new personality. _Kidding!”_ He says, as Will throws a pillow at him. “I had to say it, it was too good.”

“It wasn’t that good.”

He adds the number to his phone and sends a reply back.

**To: Hazel**

**(6:37)** That sounds fun, Hazel. Can’t wait

* * *

“I got a text from your sister.”

Nico seems less than thrilled about this. “Her idea, not mine.”

“You didn’t want to invite me to your Christmas party?” He can’t help but be a little offended.

“I didn’t want to _have_ a Christmas party.”

“Are you going to sit there and tell me you don’t like Christmas?”

“What’s to like?”

“ _Seriously?"_ Look, Will isn’t Mr. Christmas, or anything, and he knows that Nico’s relationship with his father is a little rocky, but still, it was Christmas!

“I don’t like Christmas.”

“How can you not –”

“I don’t like Christmas,” he repeats, but this time Will can hear the hardness in his voice, and the cold look in his eyes. He sits back.

“Okay. Sorry.”

He’s curious, and he wants to know what has Nico so closed off – well, more closed off than usual – but he knows that Nico likely won’t tell him. He clears his throat awkwardly as Nico sits, clearly lost in thought. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say.

It is Nico who breaks the silence. “So what did Hazel say?”

He smiles, grateful that Nico was trying to smooth things over a little. He reads the text aloud to Nico, who rolls his eyes.

“She’s dragging me Christmas shopping this weekend.”

Yes, perfect. This was a good time to feel out whether he was supposed to buy Nico something. “Do I have to bring presents?”

“You’re off the hook because you don’t know anybody. I don’t have that privilege.”

Will leans back, deciding it might be better to use the direct approach. “I’ll get you a gift though. What do you want? Black jeans? A Bring Me the Horizon CD? A pure, virgin neck to sink your teeth into?”

Nico just looks at him. “I don’t listen to Bring Me the Horizon.”

“Slipknot? Marilyn Manson?”

“You know an awful lot of scary bands for someone with such a sunny disposition.”

“Is my disposition that sunny?”

“Sunnier than mine. I thought we were over the vampire thing. Plus I don’t think vampires need virgins.”

“That sounds like something a vampire would say.”

Nico takes a sip of his coffee. “Well what do you want then?”

Yes, good, this was the time, he could ask him if they were doing presents, or –

His phone dings and he checks it out of habit, although he realizes after that this killed his plan of figuring out Christmas. Good job, Solace.

**From: Hazel**

**(7:24)** Hi, Will. Could you please tell my brother to call me? He’s not answering his texts

“Hazel wants you to call her.”

Nico does. Will doesn’t pay much attention to the conversation until he hangs up the phone and says, in a tone of voice that clearly indicates he wants no part of this, “We’re wanted at my apartment.”

* * *

When they get back to Nico’s place, almost everyone is already there. Jason, Piper, Hazel and Frank are at the kitchen table, and Nico takes a seat next to Leo on the couch. Will sits next to him, but due to the size of the couch he is more or less on top of him instead. Not that he minds.

“Okay. Clearly this is not an option for the party,” Jason says.

“You needed me to come home to figure out there’s not enough room in here for nine people?”

“No,” Hazel says patiently. “We needed you here because we’re doing Secret Santa.”

Nico looks between Jason and Hazel. “We went _years_ without celebrating Christmas, why are we deciding that now is the time to start a tradition?”

“Because Piper and Jason just got engaged, Percy and Annabeth just had a baby, even you have a person –”

Will shoots Nico a look. Nico closes his eyes and leans his head back on the couch. “They won’t stop calling you that,” he says. Will just grins. He likes it, and besides, it’s better than not-boyfriend, which is what Lou and Cecil call him.

“Frank and Hazel are in love, Leo has his right hand –”

“The bartender! Her name was Calypso! We’re in love!”

Piper pays no attention to Leo’s outburst. “And we’re becoming grown-ups! Doing grown-up things!”

“Grown-ups don’t believe in Santa.”

“Stop being such a spoil sport, Nico,” Jason says. Nico scowls and slumps down, and Will slips his hand in his. Honesty, Nico and Lou would probably get along quite well.

“Is there a limit?”

“Three hundred bucks for Nico and Hazel, twenty-five for the rest of us.” Everyone laughs, but Nico elbows Leo in the ribs.

“No limit, but don’t be too extravagant. You’re in this too, Will. Nico will help you.”

“Oh,” he says. “Okay.”

Hazel walks around with a bowl filled with pieces of paper. “There will be two left, those will be for Percy and Annabeth.” Nico reaches into the bowl and pulls out a piece of paper. Will resists the urge to snoop. Nico makes a barely noticeable sound before crumpling the paper and shoving it in his pocket.

Will puts his hand in the bowl, and when he opens the folded paper he sees, written in neat cursive, _Leo._ Great. He guesses it could be worse. He kind of knows what Leo likes. It could have been worse – he could have gotten Frank, or Annabeth, someone who he knew absolutely nothing about.

Nico is still sitting moodily beside him, but he leans into Will and takes his hand again. Will squeezes lightly and Nico sighs, as Hazel travels around to everyone else.

* * *

“Please tell me this phone call isn’t to tell me that you are working on Christmas, too.”

“Ye of little faith, Ma. No, I’m not working on Christmas. I’m calling to tell you that I’m going to a Christmas party so I’ll be home a few days later than I expected.”

“A Christmas party, like with Lou and Cecil.”

“Uh, no. With my other friends.”

“Will. Honey. What other friends.”

“ _Ouch.”_

“Not that you can’t make other friends, just that you choose not to.”

“It’s just this guy I met at a party one day, him and a few of his friends.”

“How come you haven’t mentioned him. If you’re close enough that you’re going to a Christmas party with him.”

Will tries to calm his heart rate down. He knows his mother is just asking to ask, that she doesn’t know or even think that Will and Nico are _together,_ in whatever weird way that they are, that it isn’t as if he said it was a girl he had met. If he had said girl she would have been all over it, but there is nothing suspicious here, just genuine curiosity about this new friend of Will’s.

“It hasn’t been long. I’ll come up the morning after the party, I’ll be there on the Saturday, is that all right?”

“Yes, it’s fine. I would like to meet this new friend of yours.”

He rolls his eyes. “Mom, this isn’t third grade, you don’t have to meet all of my friends.”

“Excuse me for wanting to be involved in my son’s life.”

“For Christmas can we can go two weeks without any guilt trips?”

His mother laughs. “I’ll think about it.”

“Thank you. Love you, I’ll see you soon.”

“I love you too, Will. Be safe.”

“I’ll do my best,” he says. Then he hangs up the phone and tries to figure out what the fuck he was supposed to get a guy he had met barely a month ago for Christmas.


	14. Communication

“Can I ask you for advice?”

Cecil starts making a high pitched siren noise. Will looks at him.

“What are you doing?”

“This is the bad idea siren.”

Lou Ellen rolls her eyes. “Yes, of course.”

Cecil keeps making siren noises. Lou covers his face with her hand and pushes him down.

“Do you think I’m moving too fast with Nico?”

“We already had this conversation,” Cecil says.

“And what do you mean too fast? Like, emotionally? Or sexually?”

“Well we haven’t really done anything… sexually.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Will rubs at his nose, embarrassed. It doesn’t help that they’re in Lou’s dorm room – he is talking about sex with his not-boyfriend while staring at his ex-girlfriend’s bed, which is super not helping the situation.

“I _want_ to.”

“Again, then what is the problem?”

He groans in frustration. “I don’t know how to go about it! Do I ask, do I tell him, do I try and seduce him, do I shut up and wait for him to do something? What do I _do?”_

“Jesus, Solace, it’s not like you’ve never done this before. How did you end up having sex with Katie?”

Will shakes his head. “Nope, not happening, we are not having that conversation.”

“Don’t be such a prude –”

“There is a road block on that conversation. There is a wall surrounding that entire topic. Not happening.”

Lou shrugs and leans back against the wall. “It’s fine, I’ll just ask Katie.”

Horror washes over Will. “You don’t talk about me together, do you?”

“Funnily enough we never talked about you when you were dating, but when you guys broke up she started asking how you were doing and shit.”

“You didn’t tell her –”

Lou waves him off before he can even finish the sentence. “Please, who the hell do you think I am? No, it’s just normal shit, you know, vague assurances, oh yeah he’s doing great, busy with school, always working, you know how it is, forced laughter, ha ha ha, that sort of thing.”

“Please don’t talk about me to my ex-girlfriend.”

“She was my roommate long before she was your ex-girlfriend, Will.” There is an edge to Lou’s voice, and Will backs off. Will knows he had put her in a difficult position when he decided to date Katie, and an even more difficult one once they broke up. Lou and Katie had been close, and he had created a crack, with Will and Katie on either side, and Lou awkwardly straddling the middle.

“I thought we were talking about how much Will wants to bone his not-boyfriend.”

Will shoots an appreciative smile at Cecil.

“You know there’s a very easy way around this.”

“Which is?”

“ _Communication.”_

Will wrinkles his nose. “You’ve never tried communicating with Nico.”

“Well you have to do something. I’m still not sure how I feel about the guy but clearly he isn’t going to push you into something if you’re not ready, which I respect him for. I think you’re going to have to be the one to move forward.”

Will sighs. “I don’t know how to do that.”

Lou shrugs. “I’m not going to give you advice on how to seduce your not-boyfriend. Inspiration will strike. You’ll figure something out.”

“I’m glad you feel so confident.”

“You’re making such a big deal out of this, Solace. Just… go with the flow.”

_Go with the flow._ “I never should have asked for your advice.”

“I fucking told you so,” Cecil says.

* * *

Here’s the really, really annoying thing about Lou Ellen – she’s always right. So while Will is sitting in his room, repeatedly hitting his head against the wall (or, as it’s normally called, studying), inspiration strikes, and he texts Nico.

**To: Nico di Angelo**

**(2:13)** I’ve been trying to study for three hours but Cecil won’t shut up. Can I come over and study there? I figure you’d be quieter than him

**From: Nico di Angelo**

**(2:14)** sure

Will glances at Cecil’s empty bed. Part of him feels bad for lying. Part of him is nervous. Most of him is annoyed that Lou was right once again.

He throws on his shoes, grabs his textbook for good measure, and heads out the door.

* * *

Nico makes a comment about the size of his textbook, leads him into his bedroom, and then turns over to sleep. Will opens his textbook to the appropriate chapter and then tries to work up the nerve to do something.

It takes him a while to work himself up to it. He’s not sure why he’s no nervous. It’s not born out of any doubts, because he knows he wants to do this. He wants to move. He’s not sure what it is about Nico, because he’s nothing like anybody Will had ever been interested in before in his life, but whatever this thing is that they’re doing, Will can’t get enough of it. And he wants to go further than this, wants to push himself, wants to learn things with Nico, wants to clumsily make his way around Nico’s body, learn what he likes, learn how he feels and how he tastes. It shouldn’t be any different than the things he’s done with girls, but it is. He tries to remember if he was this nervous the first time he had been with a girl. Probably.

He’s worried he’s going to be bad. That Nico, experienced Nico, won’t appreciate his clumsy attempts at seduction.

Eventually he works up the courage to get up. He had stalled for so long that Nico had actually fallen asleep, so he shakes him awake.

“Nico. I need help.”

Nico blinks awake slowly. “I’m not a doctor,” he says, and Will rolls his eyes. God, he was cute.

“Neither am I, di Angelo. That’s why I need your help.”

Nico tries to sit back but Will pushes him down. Now that he’s started, now that it’s happening, the nervousness has ebbed slightly, replaced with anticipation and horniness.

“I thought you needed my help?”

“I do.” Nico looks up at him, and Will hopes that the look in his dark eyes is one of arousal.

“I’m confused and the tiniest bit afraid.”

Will kisses him, then, shifting on top of him, lifting Nico’s shirt over his head. Nico kisses back, lifts his body so Will can easily remove his shirt, but he does break away briefly to ask, “How is this helping you study?”

“It is helping,” he says, kissing Nico’s neck, “because I have to learn anatomy. And you are going to help me.”

“That is a very thinly veiled excuse to get me naked,” Nico says with a shaky laugh, but when Will asks if he’s complaining, tugging his pants down slowly, Nico drops his head back and says, “No.”

“I’m serious, di Angelo,” Will tells him. “I’m studying. So I’m going to need you to be quiet and still because this is a very important exam.”

“You made up that story about your roommate didn’t you?”

“Cecil’s not even home.”

“Did you actually study at all?”

“Yes. There was a whole chapter before the anatomy lesson.” Technically true, plus Will isn’t eager to tell Nico that he had sat at his desk for God knows how long trying to work up the courage to blow him. “I’m touched that you’re so concerned about my study ethic but it’s going to be difficult to do this if you keep talking.”

Nico shuts up, and Will presses his lips to his skin, starting from the top, teeth tugging at Nico’s ear, kissing all over his face, naming the bones and muscles. All those complicated diagrams in his textbooks are nothing compared to this, a real body beneath him, Nico’s uneven breathing and stifled moans, the way he keeps squirming more and more as Will gets lower, clearly unhappy about the pace. Will hadn’t expected this to actually help – it had been, as Nico has said, a thinly veiled excuse to get him naked – but he finds that it’s easier to connect terminology with Nico’s warm body, and the more official names he can remember, the longer he can draw it out, the more uninhibited Nico gets with the noises spilling from his mouth. At one point he threatens Nico with starting over if he doesn’t stop moving so much, but secretly he loves it, loves the moans tumbling out between his lips, loves the shaking thighs beneath his hands, loves the weight of Nico on his tongue, and any apprehension he had felt about this, any nervousness, is quickly forgotten in the overwhelmingness of Nico, the hands gripping the sheets, thighs trembling with the effort not to arch up further into Will’s mouth, the babbling incoherent sounds. Will had always felt kind of bad about receiving blow jobs, because he hadn’t seen how it could be enjoyable for anybody, but there is something intoxicating about having Nico like this, spread out before him, unraveling in pleasure. He loves it, every part of it, and he relishes the moment when, with a warning and a loud cry, Nico comes completely undone.

Any concern he might have had about his skill level is quickly washed away by Nico, who seems to be completely blown away (pun not intended) at the fact that Will had never been with another guy. Will feels relieved and also, embarrassingly, slightly proud, as if ‘naturally proficient at blow jobs’ was something he could proudly display on his resume.

“Can I tell you something?” Will nods, unsure what could possibly be coming after that (again, pun not intended), but all that Nico says is, “I don’t know what to get you for Christmas.”

Will laughs and laughs, relief spreading through him, and after Nico shuts him up, he says, “Don’t worry. We won’t do Christmas. I didn’t have a goddamn clue either.”

“I thought you were going to buy me a Bring me the Horizon CD?”

Will laughs and Nico kisses him again.

* * *

“Oh my God, I’m not going in there.”

“Stop being dramatic, it’s not that bad.”

“Are we looking at the same place?”

“At least the sun is up. Come on.”

Cecil casts a nervous look around but follows Will in anyway. Tartarus is open but empty. There are a few patrons at the bar, most already drunk off their asses, and Cecil casts Will a look, as if to say _what the fuck were you doing here?_

Will ignores this and heads to the bar. The bartender is working, and Will is relieved. He didn’t want to have to come back to Tartarus again. Once was more than enough. Twice is pushing it.

“Excuse me,” he says. The pretty girl with the braid looks up and smiles at him. _Calypso,_ her nametag says.

When trying to figure out what to get Leo, Will decided to start with what he knew about Leo – he was good at mechanical things, and he liked girls. Specifically, the girl from Tartarus.

“Hi. What can I get you?”

“Nothing, actually. Well, nothing to drink. I have a really weird request.”

He imagines that a girl as pretty as her working in a skeezy bar like this probably got a lot of ‘weird requests,’ so he isn’t surprised when her face closes off.

“Which is?”

“Do you remember, a little while ago, there was a short Latino boy, kind of looks like an elf, probably hit on you a lot?”

Calypso rolls her eyes and nods.

“Okay. Here’s the thing. He really likes you. As in he hasn’t stopped talking about you since. And I got him for Secret Santa –”

“ _Really.”_

“At least let me finish? Please?”

She huffs but nods.

“He’s a nice guy. A little obnoxious, maybe, but harmless. And I know that the best Christmas present I could give him would be your number.”

“You’re serious.”

“I give you my word that if he’s weird, if he does anything you don’t like, if he’s overbearing, you can hold me totally responsible. I’ll give you my number too. No, not like that!” He says, when her eyebrows shoot up. “I’m dating someone. Kind of. A guy. Honestly, it’s just for insurance. I swear.”

“Really? Because it kind of seems like a flimsy excuse to get my number.”

“No, honestly, it’s not for me – I’m dating a guy! Seriously! Ask Cecil! Cecil?”

“I don’t know if they’re technically dating but they definitely make out a lot.”

Will pinches the bridge of his nose. “This is why I was going to bring Lou,” he says.

Calypso sighs. “Fine, fine. I will give you my number to give to him, but one fuck up and you take the blame.”

“Scouts honour,” Will says, even though he was never a boy scout. Calypso rolls her eyes, and when she scribbles her number down on a piece of paper, Will has a feeling that she’s doing it mostly to get rid of him. He's not even sure if it's her real number

“Thank you,” Will says.

All Calypso says is, “If you’re not going to order anything, you’re going to have to leave.”

Will does, feeling pretty damn good about himself. He’s done his Christmas shopping; he’s almost done exams; and he finally moved a step forward with Nico.

Things are looking up.


	15. Christmas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is so long!!!!! what the hell!!!! what if my chapters were consistent length!!! can u even imagine!!
> 
> again im sorry for the delay but like....my personal life is literally falling apart lmao

When Percy opens the door, Will sees a horrifically ugly Christmas sweater, and then he sees Allison, a tiny version of Annabeth with Percy’s eyes, wearing an equally ugly Christmas sweater, and a little Santa hat. It’s probably the cutest thing Will has ever seen.

Nico clearly doesn’t think so. Nico makes an unamused noise and takes Allison out of her father’s arms. “What did your father do to you?” He asks.

“You don’t get to keep her the whole time, you know. Everyone’s already been fussing over her,” Percy says as he shuts the door behind Will.

“Sure, but I’m her favourite, aren’t I Allison?” He must see Will’s face, because he asks, “What?”

“I never really pegged you as someone who would be good with children.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?”

Maybe because Nico worked so hard to put across this image of being moody, sarcastic, and generally uncaring to most people, places, and things. And yet here he was, a tiny baby cradled in his arms, and he is holding her in such a way that it is evident he is comfortable with it, and he is making literal, actual _cooing_ noises.

“I don’t know, you just… you seem like the type of person who doesn’t really like other people.”

“Babies aren’t people.”

“Do I have to have the birds and the bees talk with you?”

Nico laughs. “That’s not what I meant, idiot.”

The scary part is, Will knows exactly what he meant. He thinks he’s beginning to understand Nico language.

Everyone except Leo is there when they enter the family room. There is a rather large dog lying in the corner with reindeer horns on. Nico sits down beside Jason with the baby in his lap, and Will gently sits down next to him.

Annabeth comes in and passes a bag of chips to Piper, and there is more squabbling over the baby. Will barely listens to it – he is too focused on the gentle way Nico is bouncing his knee, the way he is holding Allison, how half of his attention is entirely focused on her always. Will likes babies as much as the next person, but something about the easy way Nico interacts with Allison is both attractive and disconcerting. He is reminded that there are so many things he doesn’t know about Nico, that he is hurtling into this relationship with no thought, no bearings, nothing to grab on to. He is flailing in space, untethered, and he loves it. He wants to uncover every secret the boy next to him has, every good and bad and dirty little secret buried inside of him.

When Will next tunes into the conversation, Leo has arrived, late once again, and the gift exchange has begun. He passes a large parcel to Annabeth, who opens it to reveal a very large book about architecture. Will thinks it might be the most boring looking book he has ever seen, but Annabeth looks like she’s about to burst into tears, enveloping Leo in a tight hug.

“Yeah, bet you’re all wishing you hadn’t made me go first, now, eh? There’s no way anyone did better than this.”

And before he knows it, Will has spoken up. “I think I probably did,” he says, and part of him is surprised at how easily he speaks up, but hey, he’s right.

“Try me, then, Solace. Who’d you get?”

“You,” he says, holding out the envelope he had put Calypso’s number in. Leo takes it, opens it, and looks confused at the tiny piece of paper that falls into his palm.

“What is this?”

“The bartender from Tartarus’ phone number.”

Leo’s jaw drops.

“Now, I gave her my word that if you turn out to be a creep she can blame it on me, so maybe try to be semi-cool –” He doesn’t get to finish this sentence, because Leo sits down on his lap and presses a sloppy kiss to his temple. He hears laughter coming from Percy and Jason; Annabeth doesn’t even look up from her book.

“Where have you been all my life, Solace,” Leo says, and before he can answer Nico has shoved Leo off of his lap.

“Are you jealous?” He says, close to Nico’s ear, and he smiles as Nico leans into him and elbows him lightly.

They go through the rest of the presents. Nico gets probably the best gift ever, a bright green sweater with little skeletons wearing Santa hats all over it. It’s the funniest thing Will has ever seen, and when Jason forces Nico into it, Will thinks he might actually die from laughter. “You look cute,” he says, when he can finally catch a breath.

Hazel gets horseback riding lessons from Piper, while Percy had given Jason an IOU for a Yankees game and dinner. Nico voices what Will had secretly been thinking – “That’s literally a date. You’re taking him on a date.” Jason seemed thrilled. Frank got him, and he hands him a movie pass for two, complete with popcorn and a drink, and even though he apologizes for what he deems a “lame gift,” Will is thrilled.

When it’s Nico’s turn he passes Percy a medium sized bag and says, “I didn’t know if you were at the point in your life where all you want is gifts for your kid so I bought Allison something too.”

The gift in question is a tiny little fisherman’s hat. “A gift from me and my father,” Nico says with a smirk as Percy puts the hat on Allison. She looks less than thrilled, but that might have just been because she was a baby.

Percy next pulls out a Ziploc bag filled with blue jellybeans, which Will doesn’t really understand, but Nico promises to explain later. There are also two early-bird tickets to the new Aquarium that had opened upstate. Percy looks at them with narrowed eyes.

“Nico. My work couldn’t even get tickets to this. How much were these?”

“Not much.”

Nico –”

“My dad was given them by one of his partners. He gave them to me. They didn’t cost me a cent. Honest.”

Percy smiles and hugs Nico tightly, dragging him out of his seat. Will watches this with a strange feeling in his heart. He thinks it might be jealousy. He’s not sure why. It’s utterly ridiculous to be jealous of someone just because they’re close to Nico, and he knows that Nico and Percy have known each other for years, but he can tell that a lot of thought was put into the gift and a tiny part of him is jealous that Percy is getting that attention, while Nico and Will hadn’t even known what to get each other for Christmas.

He’s being ridiculous, he knows. Percy was one of Nico’s best friends, obviously he’s going to know him well. It just – well, it seems a little bit _extravagant_ for Secret Santa, especially next to a sweater, a book, a phone number, and movie tickets.

God, he’s being stupid. Nico excuses himself to the bathroom and Will looks at Allison and her little hat. Nico fits in so well here. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to find a place in his life like that, or if there’s even any room left. Maybe he will never get to the position Percy is in, or Jason, where they know each other well and he can hug Nico without worrying about freaking him out, where they can exist comfortably around each other.

He gets up to find him, knocking on the bathroom door when Nico doesn’t emerge.

“Sorry,” he says, when he comes out. “I think I’m overheating in this sweater. I should definitely take it off.”

“No way. You’re keeping that on.”

“You’re sure you wouldn’t rather me take it off?”

Will laughs, pushing up against him, fears momentarily forgotten at the feel of Nico’s body pressed against him. Maybe this was enough.

“You’re not going to be able to seduce me into letting you get rid of that sweater,” he says, kissing him. Nico bites him gently.

“Are you sure? I like a challenge.”

“I can come over after, if you want,” he says, hips pushing hard against Nico. It’s something that’s been sitting in the back of his head for a while, now, this desire to go all in, to hopefully show Nico how serious he is about this. “We can figure out which one of us is right.” Nico kisses him back with fervor and Will takes that as a yes. Nico is a phenomenal kisser, and Will forgets where he is, focused only on Nico, when someone clears their throat from behind them.

He moves away quickly from Nico, embarrassed, and even more embarrassed when he sees it’s Hazel behind them. “May I speak to my brother?” She asks, and Will nods, hurriedly heading back into the family room.

Everyone has moved off into groups. Annabeth and Piper are together, looking at Annabeth’s book, and Leo and Frank are talking about something that has Leo gesticulating wildly. Percy and Jason are sitting on the floor in front of an old television, playing Super Smash Bros. Will hangs around the door awkwardly, waiting for Nico, unsure of how he fit in with these people, until Percy sees him hovering and waves him over.

“Do you play?”

“Occasionally.” He’s playing it cool. Him and Cecil play constantly.

Jason throws him a controller and Will joins in on the next game. He very quickly proves himself – he knocks both Jason and Percy out quickly.

“You’re a dirty liar, Will, that’s the strategy of someone who plays way more than _occasionally.”_

Will laughs as Percy says, “You caught me off guard, I’m ready now.”

He’s not ready. They each have two lives, and Will manages to get them down to one each before Percy starts trying to knock him over. It’s at that point that Nico returns.

“You’re winning?”

Will leans away from Percy’s outstretched arm to hit Jason off the stage. "How can you tell?"

“Percy always tries to do that when he’s losing.”

Nico joins in the next game and kicks all their asses, even Will’s. Eventually Annabeth and Piper come over, replacing Will and Jason, and Will sees very quickly that Piper is by far the best of the bunch. Eventually they all decide it’s time to head home, and when saying goodbye Leo hugs him goodbye so violently that he is lifted off of the ground. Annabeth and Piper hug him goodbye, Frank waves at him, and Hazel gives him a confusing look before smiling and hugging him, too. Percy’s only goodbye is “I want a rematch, Solace.”

Will is confused by the ease at which they all seem to accept him. He and Nico drive home in silence, and while he thinks Nico might have dozed off, his brain can’t stop thinking, trying to figure out where he fit in Nico’s confusing life. And despite everything, there’s a part of him that can’t help but wonder if Nico even wants him there.

Nico must have just been quiet, because once Will parks he is out of the car, and he rests a hand on Will’s back the entire time to the elevator, when he pushes him against the wall and kisses him. Will can’t help but wonder if there’s security videos in the elevators, because they’re putting on one hell of a show. By the time they get to Nico’s floor Nico’s belt is undone and Will is hungry for more.

Either Jason isn’t here or he’s sleeping, because all is quiet when they crash into the room. Will wonders if this was what it was like the first time, this fire between them as they make their way through the apartment. Nico’s jacket is pushed off at the front door, and sometime in the kitchen he loses his shirt. Nico pushes him into his bedroom and half-heartedly yanks Will’s pants down, and Will kicks them all the way off.

Nico climbs on top of him. They are kissing in a way too frenzied to be anything but messy, and sure enough, Will ends up almost elbowing Nico in the face, and Nico accidentally knees him in the stomach.

“Shit! I’m sorry!” Nico apologizes, and he apologizes further with his lips and his hands and his tongue.

“You’d think someone who did this on a regular basis would be better at it.”

“Fuck off, Solace,” Nico says, nipping lightly at Will’s ear. Will can’t help the moan that escapes him and Nico kisses him immediately as it leaves his mouth, scraping his nails down Will’s thigh and removing every last layer.

Will finally understands people who proclaim to be drunk on someone. He hasn’t had any alcohol tonight but he feels hazy, as if he had, and any thought that isn’t Nico is pushed immediately from his mind. He was worried he would be too afraid, too nervous, but the only feelings he registers is the innate need he has for Nico’s lips all over him and the desire to draw noises from Nico and kiss him raw.

“Will,” Nico says eventually. “What is this?”

“Well, this is something that many consenting grown-ups engage in with each other on a regular basis –” Nico bites down on his shoulder.

“Is now the time to be sarcastic?”

“Says the goddamn king of sarcasm.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t know, Nico,” he says, flipping them so Will is hovering over him. “But I don’t think now is the time to discuss it.”

“I just –”

“I like you, idiot. But you kind of seem like you scare easy.” This was probably the understatement of the century, but it was a start.

“Oh.” And then he adds, “I like you, too.”

“I would fucking hope so,” he says. He says it more confidently than he feels it. Nico probably hears it sarcastically, _I would fucking hope so,_ but what he means is _I really, really fucking hope so._

“You swear a lot when you’re naked.”

“You swear a lot every other hour of the day.”

“I –”

Will sighs and sits up, hands curled on Nico’s chest. “Nico. You’re babbling. What’s wrong?” Honestly, he’s never heard him talk so much.

Nico looks away, eyes focused on the ceiling. “What are we doing?”

“I kind of assumed we were about to have sex but you’re the expert.” He tries to sound confident, tries to sound in control, but Nico looks him in the eyes and he has a funny feeling he’s seeing past Will’s bravado.

“Oh. _Oh.”_ Will rolls his eyes as Nico continues. “Are you sure?”

As if that wasn’t a question he had been asking himself for ages. “Yeah. Positive.” Nico was a lot of things, and not all of them were good, but he knew he could trust him with this.

“You’re sure you want this to be with me?”

He nods, then amends, “Well, okay. If I had to pick anyone I’d prefer Chris Evans, but you’re the closest thing to Chris Evans that I have.”

“That’s something that has never before and will never again be said about me.”

Will kisses him. “I’m sure,” he says, willing Nico to believe it. He’s not sure what this is between them, but he knows he wants it, whatever it is.

Nico breathes deeply. “Okay.” He kisses Will gently, soft and slow, and Will has never been kissed like that, and it’s doing really weird things to his heart and his stomach.

He giggles nervously. “You sound like the _Fault in Our Stars.”_

“Never seen it.”

He sits back up, affronted. “ _Excuse me?”_

Nico rolls his eyes. “Don’t start with me, Solace.”

“I should make you do that instead.”

Nico drags him down, rolls them over again, so he is back to hovering over Will, pushing him into the mattress. “Don’t you dare.” Will runs his hands all over him, reveling in Nico di Angelo above him. It is warm in his room, or maybe Will is just warm, maybe it’s just another person’s body heat, but it is a comfortable warmness that he loves.

“Fine. But I know what we’re doing after.”

“Like hell.”

Will laughs, but Nico pulls back one last time. “Are you sure you’re sure?”

He nods, and Nico kisses him again.

* * *

Nico wakes him up in the morning, nudging him gently, a soft voice urging him awake with a whispered, “Hey.”

He wakes up slow, and it takes him a moment to place where he is, arm slung across Nico’s chest, cheek to shoulder, bodies sticking together in a way that is both intimate and kind of gross at the same time.

“What time is it?”

“Dunno. I’m going to guess way past the time you normally wake up at, though.”

“You’re a bad influence.” He is smiling. He had always thought the whole idea of being ridiculously happy after sex was something made up by sitcoms and romance novels, but apparently he was just having sex with the wrong people, because there is something blooming in the pit of his stomach, something warm and beautiful.

“I’m sorry,” Nico says. Will kisses him lightly, but Nico pulls away to ask him, again, “Are you okay?”

“I wish you’d stop asking me that.” It’s probably a really ungrateful thing to say, but everything about last night was perfect, and he can only repeat himself so many times.

“I’m sorry! It’s just –” He trails off, and Will suspects there is probably something deeper there.

“What?” He asks, although he’s not expecting an answer. So he is surprised when Nico tells him.

“I didn’t have the best experience the first time, okay? I just wanted to make sure… whatever.”

_Good one, Solace._ “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t know.” He turns Nico’s face so he can kiss him again, apologizing for his insensitivity, and Nico kisses back.

“I should get going,” he says finally. He’s not happy about it, but Will was nothing if not responsible. “I have to leave to drive home soon.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about you driving home in that car.”

“Oh stop,” he says exasperated. “It’s not like it’s far. Close enough that I can commute to work.” It wasn’t a fun set up, but even if he could afford two weeks without work, he sure as hell couldn’t afford four months in the summer. Commuting was a bitch, but it had to be done, and his bosses tended to be understanding, rarely booking him in the mornings and giving him longer shifts instead of multiple short ones.

He gets out of bed and blushes when he notices Nico looking at him. Will throws an old shirt at him to get him to look away.

“I guess I’ll see you when we get back from break?” Nico nods, and he kisses him again. There’s a lot of kissing. Will is really happy about all this kissing.

“Merry Christmas, Nico,” he says, placing a kiss on his forehead before heading out. Jason isn’t up when he leaves, and he leans against Nico’s bedroom door for a moment, grinning stupidly. He had already packed what he needed to head home and left it in his car, so there’s no reason to head back to his dorm. He bites his lip, smiles, shakes himself to try and straighten the fuck up, and then heads downstairs to drive home for Christmas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good things had been going so well i cant wait to ruin everything with the next chapter!!!!


	16. Ignored

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao what are consistent chapter lengths

Will’s father is in the kitchen when he gets home, making the usual ‘welcome home Will’ meal, as if Will went to school across the country instead of a couple of hours away. Will’s mother is hovering over his shoulder, making occasional comments and suggestions, prompting his father to nod and smile and completely ignore everything she was saying. Will’s father was an excellent cook. Will’s mother was not.

“You know, I wasn’t expecting a welcome home party, or anything, but you could have maybe met me at the door.”

“Why. You know your way.”

He laughs and kisses his mother on the cheek. “Hi, Mom. Merry Christmas.” His mother wraps a bony arm around him and squeezes.

“I hope you’re hungry,” his father says. Will grins at him.

“I mean, always, but especially now.”

“Good. Now get out of the kitchen so your father and I can work.”

Will and his dad exchange a knowing look but otherwise say nothing.

He heads to his bedroom to drop off his bags. Will’s room is small, like the rest of his house is small. His bed took up most of the room, with a bookshelf shoved into the corner, filled mostly with old textbooks and mystery novels. There was also a cramped little desk set against the wall at the foot of his bed, close enough to his bed that he used it as a chair during his work. There are pictures littered around his room, some in frames, some just taped up onto his wall. Him and Lou at the mall after she got her ears pierced, Will smiling widely at the camera, one tooth missing, Lou crying. Him, Lou and Cecil during eighth grade track and field, all of them dirty and looking miserable. Them at Lou’s sixteenth birthday party; Cecil’s sixteenth birthday party. The three of them at prom, Lou looking beautiful, Will looking awkward, Cecil half asleep.

Then there were pictures of Michael.

There were so many times over the years that he had seriously considered taking the pictures down, but every time he tried he found he couldn’t. Sometimes it hurt to have Michael everywhere like this, everywhere he turned, and some part of him and thought it might be better to turn his bedroom into a safe haven, a place to get away from the sadness, but he learned very quickly that he couldn’t run away from the memories, and he didn’t want to. Painful memories of Michael, he decided, were better than forgetting. He owed his brother more than that.

He looks at the picture he has on his bedside table, beside the one of him and his friends at prom. It was him and Michael at Michael’s sixteenth birthday. Will had been twelve, and to him at that time, Michael had been an adult, his role model to look up to in everything Will did. Michael has his arm around Will’s shoulders, a drink in his other hand. He had died a few weeks later. It was the last picture they had together.

There’s a knock on his door, and his father comes in. Will gives him what Lou would classify as a Look.

“You left Mom alone with dinner?”

His father laughs. “All she has to do is stir. I think she can handle that.”

“Have you met Mom?”

His father laughs, but his eyes settle on the picture Will was looking at. He swallows and forces a smile on his face. Michael had been his father’s son. The problem with his dad is that he was quiet in everything he did, including his grief. It had been almost ten years since Michael died, but there was still a heavy sadness that had settled onto his father’s shoulders that hadn’t ever fully lifted.

His father shakes himself out of whatever memory he was in and smiles softly. “I need a few more things. Want to tag along?”

Will shakes his head. “Thanks, but I have to shower. I also have about three months of laundry I need to do,” he says with a wry grin. His father just laughs, pats him on the shoulder, and then leaves.

* * *

By the time Will has taken a shower and put up a load of laundry, his father is back, and his mother has officially been kicked out of the kitchen. She is in the living room; there is some kind of talk show on the television, but his mother appears to mostly just be sending dirty looks in the direction of the kitchen.

“He can’t see you glaring through walls, you know.”

“I can sure as hell feel it,” his father shouts. Will laughs.

“This happens every year, Mom. You’d think you’d be used to it by now.”

His mother opens her mouth to reply, but then stops. She leans over and yanks the collar of Will’s shirt down.

“What is that.”

For his part, Will has no idea what she’s talking about. “What’s what?”

“This bruise on your neck.” She taps it lightly. His mother drags out the word bruise, implying that she knows exactly what, exactly, it is, and with horror, Will catches on.

He was going to kill Nico.

“Nothing.”

“William.”

“What? I didn’t even know there was anything there. I probably just bumped something.”

“On your neck.”

“Sure. Like a tray, or something. You know how much I work.” He tries not to sound guilty. He definitely, totally fails. His mother narrows her eyes.

“You’ve never been a liar, Will.”

“What do you want from me? I don’t know what it is.” His voice is probably about three octaves higher than it normally is. Shit.

“Will –”

“Leave the boy alone, Naomi.” Will turns thankfully to his father, but he continues. “If he wants to let someone suck on his neck, he’s not obligated to tell you. It’s his neck.”

Will groans. “Dad.”

“I gave birth to that neck.”

“Once that neck turned eighteen it became it’s own, autonomous neck.”

“Can we please stop talking about me like I’m just a neck?”

“Look, dear, I think the neck is trying to communicate with us.”

“Shouldn’t you be cooking?”

Will’s father chuckles but obediently heads back into the kitchen. Will’s mother keeps her eyes trained on his neck.

“Mom. Please.”

She sighs heavily, as if minding her own business was a huge strain. “I will figure it out eventually.”

“I don’t doubt it,” he says under his breath. He takes out his phone and strategically and subtly angles his body so his mother can’t see who he’s texting.

The amused noise she makes lets him know he’s not being nearly as strategic or subtle as he would like.

**To: Nico di Angelo**

**(3:54)** I have a hickey. My mother is glaring at me. This is your fault

**(3:55)** She won’t stop asking me what’s wrong with my neck

**(3:55)** I hate you

“This better not be an indication of what this entire break is going to be like.”

“Don’t be dramatic, Ma. I’m just texting Lou.”

“Mhm,” she says, drawing the sound out in the most disbelieving way possible. Will rolls his eyes and shoves his phone in his pocket to avoid anymore conversations.

* * *

**To: Nico di Angelo**

**(5:38)** Did you get in okay?

He’s a little annoyed that Nico still hasn’t responded, and a little worried, as well. He reassures himself that it’s probably nothing. It was Christmas, after all. It was a busy time of year. Maybe rich people celebrated Christmas differently. Maybe they were throwing parties nonstop.

Will had a brief mental image of Nico at one of those old time parties, like in Pride and Prejudice, and he smiles.

Will loved Christmas at his house. Will loved Christmas period, to be honest, but Christmas in the Solace household was a great affair. His father cooked extravagant meals every night, and it was the one time of the year when Will was firmly instructed not to be concerned with money. It didn’t really stop him, for the most part, but it was nice to have the option.

His parents always waited for him to get home before they decorated the house, so he spent the day hanging up tinsel and trying to find places for his mother’s exorbitant amount of wreaths. Every year when they were taking down the decorations they always forgot one, and eventually it just became a kind of tradition – whatever we forget stays up all year. This year it had been a creepy robotic Santa who plugged into the wall and moved. Will hated it. It blinked and it had a candle in his hand and it’s movements made it look like it was doing a slow motion version of the robot.

Creepy.

They spend that day decorating, and for dinner they have his father’s legendary stew, and after that his mother puts on a fire in the fireplace and they all sit in the family room together. The television is on but they are not really watching it; Will is telling them about school, about work, filling them in on how Cecil and Lou Ellen have been. His mother asks about his new friends and he gives her as brief a rundown as is humanly possible. He says he met them at a party and they kind of just hit it off, it’s no big deal, stop being so nosy, Mom. His mother looks like she wants to ask more – probably their full names and social security numbers, knowing his mother – but a gentle nudge from his father stops her. Will smiles gratefully at him.

Will loves Christmas, but times like these are always when he feels Michael’s absence the most. His parents and him went to the cemetery when they woke up, and they will go again on Christmas morning, but these times always feel empty. Like the cup that is their family is only 3/4s full.

His father pats him on the knee, and he knows he understands.

* * *

He gives Nico one more day before he decides that he’s ignoring him. An uncomfortable feeling has settled in the pit of his stomach, and he feels heavy, almost, in a way he can’t quite understand or explain.

**To: Nico di Angelo**

**(2:03)** Okay. Are you mad at me?

**(2:10)** I didn’t really peg you as the type of person to ignore someone once they fucked you

Nico still doesn’t respond, and Will knows, then, that he never will. He had tried to think of the harshest thing he could say, and if Nico still refused to respond to that, it meant that either it was true, or he just didn’t care enough. Will isn’t sure which one would be worse. Did Nico use him for sex? That didn’t make any sense, though, because Nico had one night stands all the time, if Nico wanted sex he could have just gotten it from somewhere else and ignored Will. Unless he considered Will to be some kind of challenge? Some kind of conquest, a notch on his belt? Nico had invited him out with his friends and Nico had called him and Nico had done all these things that Will had thought meant he liked him, but maybe he was trying to accomplish some mental checklist, because Will was the equivalent of a virgin in this relationship and maybe Nico got off on that.

But that _still_ didn’t sound like Nico, and yeah he was a difficult person to understand but Will honestly doesn’t think that’s the type of person he was, regardless of the text he sent. Which meant that maybe Will had done something that made Nico realize he didn’t want to be with him anymore, in whatever way they were even together in the first place. Maybe Will had ruined everything by having sex with Nico, and it had given him some revelation that Will wasn’t who he wanted. That Will wasn’t worth it.

He thinks that might be worse. If Nico used him for sex all it meant was that Nico was a douchebag. If Will had done something to fuck this up…

He calls Lou Ellen and Cecil.

“Oh, three-way calling. How very 2007.”

“Merry fucking Christmas, assholes.”

Will doesn’t say anything, trying to figure out how to phrase what he wants to say, unsure of how to articulate how he’s feeling. Lou is prattling on, the way Lou tends to do, so it is Cecil who notices Will’s silence.

“What’s up, Solace? You’re pretty quiet considering you instigated this phone call.”

He swallows and then manages to say, “I had sex with Nico. And now he’s ignoring me.”

There is silence from both ends. Will waits.

Finally Cecil speaks. “Sex how?”

Will makes an irritated noise. “Would you like a diagram?”

“No, I mean, like… who was the pitcher and who –”

“I am NOT answering that, Jesus Christ, Cecil, what is wrong with you?”

“Will.” Lou’s voice cuts through, calm and strong, and Cecil immediately quiets. “What happened?”

“I told you what happened. I had sex with Nico the day of the Christmas party, and now he won’t return my texts.”

“Fuck,” Cecil swears quietly. “What an asshole. I told you –”

“Cecil,” Lou says sharply, cutting him off, for which Will is immensely grateful. He doesn’t need to hear that right now. He’s not sure what he needs to hear, but it’s not that.

“What do I do?” He asks. Cecil does not speak, maybe not trusting that his advice will amount to anything other than ‘kill him.’

“There’s nothing you can do,” Lou says commandingly. “You have done nothing but bend over backwards for him – Cecil, _stop laughing –_ and he doesn’t deserve it. You’ve given him more than enough chances. It’s time to move on. Put him behind you – _Cecil –_ and find someone better. You _deserve_ better.”

“She’s right,” Cecil says. “He’s never deserved you.” He can hear the implication – _I never liked him –_ but he appreciates that that’s as far as Cecil is going. “That’s, like, the shittiest thing you could do to a person.”

“Especially since he knew this was the first time you had done anything like this with another guy.” Lou’s voice is very clearly controlled, and he can sense that she is keeping her anger in check. “Enjoy Christmas as much as you can, Will. Forget about him, enjoy the holiday. We’ll talk more when we get back, okay? Don’t text him again, delete his number, whatever.”

“Yeah,” he says hoarsely. “I guess.”

“It’s going to be okay, Will. You’ll get through this.”

“Okay,” he says, wanting to believe her.

“Merry Christmas, Will,” Cecil says. Lou echoes his words, and Will, around a lump in his throat, says them back.

Sometimes he forgets how much he loves his friends.

* * *

Lou said not to text him again, to delete his number, but Will sends one more text. He’s hoping that maybe Nico will respond, will have some totally understandable excuse, _sorry, my phone died and I forgot my charger so I had to buy another,_ or _I lost my phone and I just found it,_ or _I left it in New York and Percy just managed to mail it back to me,_ something totally innocent, something they can laugh over, _I can’t believe you thought all I wanted from you was sex._

**To: Nico di Angelo**

**(12:43)** Whatever

It’s childish, he knows, and it very clearly sends the message _it’s not whatever, I’m really upset,_ but he’s hoping that it might shame Nico into responding to him, at least, even if it was because he never wanted to see him again.

But there is no reply.

When Will’s girlfriend had cheated on him in twelfth grade, it was the worst feeling in his life, and no matter what Lou or Cecil said to try to make him feel better, that feeling of worthlessness, of not feeling good enough, persisted.

Until he spoke to his mother. There was something solid about his mother, something comforting, and no matter how old he got, some small part of Will still felt like his mother could fix anything. He wanted to talk to her, wanted her advice, wanted her to hug him and tell him things would be okay, that this feeling would go away, that it wouldn’t always hurt, that he was worth more than this.

The problem was that would involve coming out to her, telling her he was bi, that he was in some kind of relationship with a guy, that he had _sex_ with a guy. He thinks his mother might have some idea he was attracted to men – his mother kind of knew everything – but he always assumed they had an unspoken agreement that if they never talked about, she could pretend it wasn’t really there.

But the feeling in his stomach was getting heavier and heavier, and he was starting to show it, moping around, unable to put full enthusiasm into whatever they were doing, and his parents were starting to notice. He didn’t want to ruin Christmas.

He didn’t want Nico di Angelo to ruin his Christmas.

And, look, he can admit it – he wants his mother. He is sad and upset and angry and he wants his mother.

So that night, after dinner, when his father is snoozing in front of the television, he asks his mother if they could talk alone in his bedroom. Naomi studies him with her head cocked, but she nods and follows him into his room.

Will sits across from her on his bed, and takes a deep breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry for the delay, everyone! there's been a whole lot of bullshit including my parents getting divorced and me working WAY TOO MUCH, but thank you to everyone who expressed concern! 
> 
> I had to literally split this chapter up into two because it was so fucking long so sorry about the slight cliff hanger at the end, I'll try to be quicker on the updating! xo


	17. Party for Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay! so! this chapter is shorter than usual because it was combined with the next chapter, but that would have made it, like SUPER MEGA CHAPTER so i split it up. next chapter should be up tomorrow! sorry for the delay again, i love you all.

He takes a deep breath.

He lets it out. He still hasn’t said anything. He searches in his head for words, for something to say, but he comes up empty.

He’s scared.

“Is this about the hickey.”

God, how did she do that? “How did you know?”

“Call it mother’s intuition. Is she ignoring you.”

Will isn’t sure how to respond to that. She is both right and wrong. “Why do you think that?”

“Every time your phone goes off you jump on it, and then you look upset. Clearly you’re waiting for her to contact you. And I’m guessing she hasn’t.”

This was it. Now or never.

“She’s not ignoring me,” he says.

“Then what –”

“He is, though. He’s…ignoring me.”

There are probably better ways to come out. When he finally works up the nerve to look at his mother, her eyes are narrowed, and she is studying him in a strange way, as if she were sizing him up.

His heart sinks.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“For what.”

“For… for him. For the guy.”

And then his mother _rolls her eyes._ “Honestly, William, do you think I’m that narrow minded?”

Uh-oh. He got full named _and_ she asked a question like a normal person. Will has never heard that before. He always thought his mother didn’t know what a question mark was.

“Um.”

She looks at him angrily, but then she shakes her head and smooths her features into a calm expression. She reaches out and grabs Will’s hand.

“Darling. You’re my son. I don’t care who you date. _As long as they treat you right._ Tell me about what happened.”

Will lets out a shaky breath and explains, in as vague terms as possible. He’s pleasantly surprised and incredibly relieved that his mother seems to accept him, but he doesn’t want to push it by giving her all the gory details.

“I met him at a party. We, um –”

“Hooked up.”

“ _Mom.”_

“I’m old, Will, I’m not that old. I know what goes on at parties.”

“This is the worst conversation I’ve ever had.”

She smiles and pats his hand. “Continue on.”

“And then I just… I don’t know, I didn’t think I was ever going to see him again! I was just… I wanted a night where I could let go and stop thinking about Katie for two fuc – frigging minutes and that ended up happening. And it would have been the end of it except I kept running into him. We met at the…” Oh, God. “The STD clinic,” he says, turning bright red, avoiding his mother’s eyes.

“Don’t be embarrassed, Will, I’m glad you’re being safe.”

This was the worst decision he’s ever made.

“And then he came to Apollo’s and I met him there, and then he came to the drug store to buy diapers for his friends and I was working and I gave him my number, and he texted me, and we started… I don’t know. I don’t know what it was. I don’t know what it _is._ He’s like… jumpy. And closed off, and he has a lot of issues, like he was forcibly outed when he was young and it fuc – messed him up and he only ever hooked up with people, and I didn’t want to push it or scare him away by asking what exactly we were. But it was good, for a while. We were good, and I think it was starting to get serious, and I really liked him, so before I left, we…” He trails off, picking at a stray thread on his mattress.

“You had sex.”

Will is mortified. He totally regrets this entire conversation. He should have just stayed in the closet, utterly miserable.

“I mean. Yeah. I guess.”

“If you’re not sure he can’t have been that good.”

_“Mom.”_ Naomi laughs and squeezes his hand. Will glares. “Fine, we did. And now he’s ignoring me. And I’ve texted him multiple times, and he won’t respond, and I’ve been passive-aggressive and just plain aggressive-aggressive but there’s nothing. And I didn’t think he was that kind of person, to do that. And I…” he trails off again. He was having a very hard time finishing his sentences today. “I feel so fuc – damn stupid because it’s been, like, three months! And that’s not nearly enough time to feel this strongly about somebody, but I –”

“Will,” his mother says, sounding incredibly serious. “I know you don’t like talking about your father –”

“My father is sleeping in the living room,” he says stubbornly. Will’s mother smiles softly.

“Your birth father,” she says obligingly. “But I think, for once, it might help.

“Phoebus and I – don’t make that face, it’s not my fault that was his name – we were not together for very long. Barely a summer. And as you know, we had sex –”

“ _Mom.”_

“Why are you so surprised, you’re sitting here, aren’t you?”

“I’m not surprised, but do you have to be so graphic?”

“I said the word sex, Will, it’s not like I told you how often or in what –”

“Please don’t finish that sentence.”

“ _Anyway._ What I mean to say here, Will, is that I fell hard for your – birth father. And it didn’t matter to me that it had been barely two months, and it didn’t matter to me that I barely knew him, and it didn’t matter to me that it was foolish to love him. Love doesn’t listen to that stuff, Will. It doesn’t pay attention to timelines. It doesn’t make _sense._ So you love him. It might be silly, and it hurts, but don’t be ashamed of it. Don’t ever be ashamed of your capacity to love. Be ashamed of those who would take advantage of it.”

Will studies his hands and tries to will his tears back into his tear ducts. They don’t listen.

“Don’t feel bad, my love. Don’t feel bad about loving. Pity those who live without it.”

Will sniffs. “I think that’s a line from Harry Potter.”

“It certainly is not. That was bonafide Naomi Solace wisdom.”

“No, I’m almost certain Dumbledore said something exactly like that.”

“Then I will be suing for copyright infringement. Pack your bags, darling, we shall be rich.”

He smiles. His mother wraps an arm around him and pulls him tight to her. He buries his head in the crook of her neck and lets himself take comfort in his mother, like he did when he was younger.

“This isn’t your fault, Will. Giving yourself to someone is always a risk, but it is their fault if they do not accept it. I know this is Generic Mom Line #1, but if anyone doesn’t understand what a catch you are, then he’s an idiot.”

Will snorts. “First you quote Dumbledore, now you’re speaking in clichés.”

“Clichés are clichés because they are true. Anyone would be lucky to have you, Will.”

“Gag.”

She pinches him. “I don’t care who you sleep with, honey. I don’t care who you fall in love with. I don’t care what gender they are. What I care about is that they treat you right. And if they don’t, they are not worth your time. If you’re busy enough to skip Thanksgiving to work, then you’re certainly busy enough to fret over some idiot boy who doesn’t text you back.”

“I can’t believe you managed to work a guilt trip in with an inspiring speech. That’s impressive, even for you.”

“What was his name?”

“Nico. Nico di Angelo.”

She sniffs distastefully. “An Italian.”

“ _Mom.”_

She laughs. “I love you. And this _Nico_ di whatever –”

“Angelo.”

“Does not deserve you. Forget about him, darling. You will find someone better. Someone worth it.” Her fingers smooth his hair down and she presses a kiss to his forehead. “I am happy you told me. I have told you since you were a child that you could always tell me anything.”

“I know.”

There is a gentle knock on the door, and at Will’s word it opens. His father pokes his head in.

“How come I wasn’t invited to this little party?”

His mother gives Will a look. Will sighs.

“I fell in love with a guy and now he won’t text me back.”

His father nods. “Reminds me of my own college years.”

Will groans. “ _Dad.”_

His parents laugh. Will drops his head into his hands. “I’m done having this conversation.”

His mother just kisses his forehead again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> will is such a mommy's boy


	18. Apologies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've said it before and i'll say it again - imagine if i had consistent chapter lengths lmao

When Will gets back to school Lou and Cecil are in his room. Lou is stretched out beside Cecil on his bed, but when Will opens the door she gets up to hug him tightly.

“Happy New Year, asshole.”

“You liked your gift, I suppose?”

“What can I say, I have nice taste.”

Will rolls his eyes and throws his bag on the floor beside his bed. “I need, like, an eight hour nap.”

“That’s called sleeping,” Cecil says.

“And what are you so tired from? You live two hours away.”

“Well,” he says slowly. “Nico is still ignoring me. Also I came out to my parents. And I think my father made a gay joke and I’m not sure if he was joking.”

Lou Ellen and Cecil both stare at him. Finally Cecil says, “I finished Majora’s Mask.”

“My Christmas was way more exciting than yours,” Will says. Cecil shrugs.

“We can’t all be you, Solace.”

They talk a bit more, exchanging stories about Christmas while Will unpacks. Eventually Lou gets a text and goes to meet Nyssa, and Will collapses on his bed while Cecil opens his 3DS.

After a little while, there’s a knock on the door. Cecil gets up to open it, since Will feels unnecessarily tired.

The voice he hears makes him freeze.

“Um, hi. Is…is Will here?”

Will sits up. Cecil is conveniently blocking the door that Nico can’t see Will and Will can’t see Nico.

“Depends,” Cecil says. “Are you Nico?”

“Yeah.”

“Then no, he’s not.” Will almost laughs. He’s never truly appreciated how protective Cecil was oh him; it’s kind of sweet.

“Will,” Nico calls. “Please come talk to me.”

“He’s not here,” Cecil says, like his own personal bodyguard. Will sighs and stands up.

“It’s okay, Cecil,” he says.

Seeing Nico causes a whole medley of feelings to erupt in his stomach. Seeing him again, he remembers exactly how he used to feel about him. Nico was a lot of things, but he was also the first person Will had ever felt like this with, even in such a short amount of time. But he tries his best to keep his emotions off his face, giving Nico the hardest glare he can muster. He focuses exactly on how he felt over Christmas break and how shitty Nico had acted. Thinks about what his mother said.

“Merry Christmas,” he says. Nico stares at him with uncertainty.

“Can I talk to you?”

_No. Send him away._ But there’s a small part of Will that still hopes, _maybe he has a good excuse._

You can’t help who you love, his mother had said.

“I guess. Cecil?”

Cecil gives him a look that clearly says _are you fucking kidding me?_ But he says, “Yeah, yeah. I’ll go find Lou Ellen. She owes me money, anyway.”

“No, _you_ owe her money.”

“Oh. Maybe I won’t find her then.”

Will resists the urge to roll his eyes. He’s pretty sure Cecil goes out of his way to hit Nico on the way out, but he can’t say Nico doesn’t deserve it.

He heads back into the room without a word, and after a moment Nico follows, hands stuffed in his pockets. “Sit,” Will says, nodding at his bed, as he sits on Cecil’s.

And he waits. Nico came here; Nico is the one who has to talk. Will has nothing to say to him.

Will has everything to say to him.

“I’m sorry,” Nico finally says. “I’m sorry I ignored you.”

Not good enough. So Will says nothing.

“And I… it had nothing to do with the fact that we had sex beforehand. I swear. That was just really bad timing. Not like that!” He adds, when Will’s eyebrows shoot up. “I don’t mean it was bad timing, it was really good timing, it was… well, it was great, really –”

“Nico.” He might like listening to someone compliment his skills in bed, but not now.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to ignore you. Really, I didn’t. I just… Christmas is a really shit time for me, and I… I’ve never been good at keeping in touch with people over Christmas, and my friends all know that, but you didn’t, and I’m sorry.”

“Okay.” It’s all he says. One word, and Nico practically deflates before him. Will feels the tiniest twinge of guilt, but he ignores it.

“Do you… do you want to know why?”

“Are you going to tell me?”

Nico nods. “I want to. It had nothing to do with you, Will. I promise. It’s… this was all me.”

Will just nods, and Nico keeps talking.

“When I was ten years old, my sister died.” His voice breaks, and despite everything Will feels pity intrude on his sadness.

He knows what it’s like, to fold in on yourself when you lost a sibling. But that was eleven years ago, and while there is no timeline on grief, it doesn’t make Nico’s actions entirely forgivable. “Her name was Bianca. My mother had died when I was barely a year old and my father was gone a lot, so Bianca pretty much raised me. She was the one who taught me both English and Italian. She taught me how to read. She was the one who would run into the room and chase my nightmares away. She was my everything. She was my sister, my parent, and my best friend all rolled into one.”

Will knows the feeling.

“When I was ten, over winter break, we were walking back from the store. We had been Christmas shopping. As we were crossing the street, I… I had run ahead. I was ten and full of energy and I couldn’t sit still. When I got to the other side of the street I turned around just in time to see the car run a red light.”

Tears have started running down Nico’s cheeks. Will wants to go comfort him, and he hates himself for it.

“I saw it… she went – she went flying. He had been drunk and speeding and he hit her and by the time I got over to her the blood was pooling all around her head and she was… she was making these noises, she was in pain and I could tell and I remember touching her, trying to see where she was hurt and calling her name and then Percy was there, he lived nearby and he had heard it, and he dragged me away from her and I was screaming at him. I rode in the ambulance with her and I held her hand and I could feel her grip loosening. By the time my father got to the hospital it was too late.

“My father and I didn’t even bother to celebrate that Christmas, and we probably would have ignored it for the rest of our lives if Hazel hadn’t shown up. My father… for a long time I thought he had loved Bianca more than me. I had felt like a failure. And then once Hazel and Persephone, my step-mother, came, my father started opening up. And I felt like he had forgotten about Bianca. And that it was up to me to remember her the way she deserved to be remembered. And during Christmas holidays, when I’m stuck in that house without her and I remember the way the doctor had apologized to my father and I just shut down and I’m sorry. I should have told you about Bianca. I shouldn’t have shut you out.”

Will is quiet. He is thinking about what Nico is saying. He is thinking about Michael. He is thinking about the way he had caved in on himself after his death, how nothing seemed to matter, how he didn’t understand why the world kept turning if his brother was gone. He is thinking about life as Nico, how closed off he is, about all these things that have defined who he was. A sister who accepted him and a father who didn’t give him the love he needed. Being outed in front of the school. All these things that shape you as a person. And it doesn’t excuse what he had done, but it explained it, to an extent.

But still.

“Do you know why I want to be a doctor?”

Nico shakes his head.

“My brother died. Step-brother, I guess, but that doesn’t matter when you’re twelve and you idolize the ground he walks on. His name was Michael. He had to go in for surgery and something happened on the operating table and they couldn’t save him. I wasn’t even at the hospital, that’s how routine the operation was. My mother came home without him and I remember sitting there thinking, what the fuck is the point of spending all that time and money on medical school if you can’t save a sixteen-year-old boy? And I decided, at that point, that that’s what I was going to do, I was going to spend all that time and money on med school so that that never happened to anyone else’s brother. And every single day I read through my textbooks and I sit in classes and I try and figure out what they could have done to save him. And I know I’ll never know, no matter how hard I study, but every single person out there could be my brother. I couldn’t save him but I can save everyone else.”

“That’s dangerous,” Nico says. Will glares.

“What’s dangerous?”

“There are going to be people you can’t save. If you think about it like that each one of them will destroy you. Every person who you can’t save will eat away at you little by little until there’s nothing left. They couldn’t save Bianca. There was no chance. That’s what the doctor said, and he was right because I rode in the ambulance with her and I could… it’s like I could feel her dying. I could feel her fading away. By the time she got to the hospital it was too late. No doctor could have saved her.”

“You don’t have a monopoly on sadness. You don’t have a monopoly on loss. You don’t have a monopoly on waking up every day without your sibling. The day I turned seventeen I cried for three and a half hours straight because Michael would never be seventeen. Every single birthday I cry because I’m reaching ages he never got to reach. You don’t see me blocking people out, you don’t see me pushing people who like me away because I have to hold on to this suffocating sadness.” Nico held onto things; Will knew that now. But eventually you had to let go.

“I thought that if I didn’t remember Bianca no one else would.”

“I never eat blue M&M’s, because he never did. Every single time I’m at a restaurant I order chocolate milk, because that’s all he ever drank. Every year on his birthday I watch _Casablanca_ because that was his favourite movie. I remember him every single day but I still live. I have all these little habits that I got from him and I remember him and I love him and I miss him but I don’t let it stop me. There’s a difference between forgetting and moving on. You can move on without forgetting.”

“She was all I had.”

“Maybe, but you have a lot more now.”

Nico looks down at his hands. “I’ve never seen you angry before.”

“I try really hard to be a positive person, Nico. But don’t mistake that for happiness. There are a lot of times when I’m not happy. But there are a lot of times when I am, too.” He decides he might as well go for it. Now was a time for truth. “I’m happy around you. You’re a complicated little shit but you make me happy. And I want to be with you, properly. But I’ve been so afraid to tell you because it constantly feels like you have one foot out the door.”

“I’m like that with almost everybody,” Nico says, and strangely it does kind of make Will feel better – it meant it wasn’t a Will thing, it was a Nico thing once again. “In high school I got it into my head that Jason and everyone didn’t actually like me, that it was some noble, protect the gay kid from the bullies type deal but he hadn’t bet on the fact that I would keep hanging around. So I avoided them for two weeks. Jason worked harder than he should have had to in order to convince me that they were really my friends. I still don’t know why he went to all that work.”

“Because you’re worth it.” He means it.

Nico just shrugs. “All I’m saying is… this isn’t you. This has always been my problem. It’s why I only ever had one night stands.”

Will can’t help but smile. Maybe he’s an idiot for forgiving Nico again; maybe it was just love. “So what does that make me then?”

“Persistent,” Nico says, which makes Will laugh.

“You told me you wouldn’t do this anymore, you know.”

“No, I said I’d tell you if you did anything wrong. You didn’t.”

“You’re very difficult.”

“So I’ve been told.”

They sit and look at each for a little bit; Nico looks like he’s soaking in the fact that he is here, and Will is talking to him. Will is trying to figure out how he’s going to sell this to his friends.

He realizes eventually that Nico isn’t going to say anything or do anything, that he’s waiting for Will to make the move and prove that it’s all right, so Will does. He gets up and sits on the bed beside Nico. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

And he does. Will grabs the back of his neck and pulls him forwards, and Nico caves into him, grabbing the front of Will’s shirt like he’s never going to let go. He apologizes with his lips; apologizes with his hand in Will’s shirt, says sorry with his kisses. And Will accepts it; he takes Nico’s apologies and kisses him back.

“Okay, _now_ Lou Ellen owes me money.”

He glares at the open door. “Didn’t I tell you two to stop making bets about my life?”

“Yes, but we never agreed to.” Cecil stares at him mildly; Will wishes he knew what he was thinking. He also wishes he would go away so he could go back to kissing Nico.

“It’s okay,” Nico says, letting go of Will’s shirt. “I should go back, anyway.”

“All right,” Will says reluctantly. Nico gets up and Will follows, glancing at Cecil again, trying to figure out how he’s feeling about this. Cecil gives nothing away.

“You’re not allowed to kick me out of the room every time you want to make out with your boyfriend, Solace.”

Will shoots a look at Nico, searching his face for some kind of reaction to that word. _Boyfriend._ It’s what he’s always wanted Nico to be, even though he’s been too afraid to voice that desire aloud.

Nico looks at Will, and Will looks back, waiting for some kind of reaction, and Nico just smiles. Will grins back at him in relief, leaning forward to kiss him again, until Cecil starts making gagging noises until they stop. Nico gives him one last smile before he leaves, and Will shuts the door.

When he turns back, Cecil is livid.

“Are you _fucking kidding me?”_

Will sighs. “Cecil –”

“Do I have to remind you of what happened over Christmas?”

“No, I am perfectly fucking aware of –”

“You were _heartbroken,_ Will, and what, he smiles at you and you just roll over onto your back and forgive him?”

“Watch your fucking mouth, Cecil,” Will growls out. “You have no goddamn idea what you’re talking about, so how about you stop talking out of your ass?”

“Tell me what the hell it is about this guy that he can do anything to you and you just forgive him automatically.”

“I didn’t forgive him automatically, you ass. Do you think I would have forgiven him if he just waltzed in here and said he forgot to text me? Look,” he says, trying to calm himself down. “Here’s what you need to understand. Nico fucks up, but he always admits it, and he always apologizes, and he always works his hardest to prove that he means it. If I left everyone who ever fucked up, it would be pretty fucking hard to find someone to be with, wouldn’t it?”

“That was more than fucking up –”

“He didn’t do it on purpose, Cecil. He didn’t just _forget._ Just because you don’t know his reasons doesn’t mean he doesn’t have them.”

“What possible reason could there be to excuse what he did?”

“I’m not trying to excuse what he did. I’m just saying he had an explanation. And if he admits that, and if he works to fix it, then what is the problem?”

“You are going to get your heart broken.”

“Cecil, I know you’re just concerned, but I know what I’m doing.”

Cecil just shakes his head. “You’re my best friend, Will. I just have a bad feeling about this.”

“Did you and Lou really bet on this?” At Cecil’s nod, he says, “And you said I was going to get back with him?”

“Yes,” Cecil says. “Because I know you. That doesn’t mean I have to like it. It just means I need the money.”

Will shakes his head. Cecil sighs. “I don’t want to fight, Will. I just want you to know how I feel.” Will just nods. Cecil gives him a small smile. “C’mon. Let’s go get something to eat.”

It’s a truce, Will knows. He returns Cecil’s smile.

He doesn’t want to fight, either. He stands by his decision. Nico always admitted when he was wrong, and he always tried. And at the end of the day, Will doesn’t want to be with someone who never fucks up; he wants to be with someone who fights to be better.

_Boyfriend._ Nico hadn’t objected to that. He had just smiled and kissed him.

Things feel like they’re turning around for the better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to everyone who has given me love for my personal shit, thank you so much! it means so much to me that you guys are so supportive and understanding at how long it's taking for me to update. and i know i don't respond to all of your comments but trust me when i say i read them all (multiple times) and it honestly means so much to me, the response this series has gotten, so thank you all so much and i love you!!!!!!
> 
> i'm really sappy today idk


	19. Summer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, listen......this is so half-assed. i'm sorry. for some reason i just had such super block with this chapter and i wanted to get something up because i'm going away for a week so there likely won't be another chapter up before i get back on september 10. i am really sorry about this chapter, bc it's super short and rushed, but i'm hoping to finish writing on my cruise so that when i get back i can type it up and have it finished for you!!! thank you guys so much for your patience and understanding, it means so much to me

True to what Will had told Cecil, Nico did his fucking hardest to make up for what he had done to Will. He was overly affectionate, at least in private; in public Nico still objected to holding his hand, but in private they would sit together legs entwined, or Nico would lean back between Will’s legs, lying on his chest while Will ran his fingers through his hair.

Nico does try, and Will can tell. He laughs more and he tries not to be as closed off, and he does this thing, now, where, as if to make up for Christmas, whenever Will texts him he tries to respond almost immediately. When Will partners up with Hazel to throw Nico a surprise birthday dinner, Nico doesn’t even really seem that upset. They go back to Nico’s after and Nico kisses marks into his skin, and each mark feels like an apology.

Cecil still doesn’t approve, and Lou, for once, takes Cecil’s side. “You can only fuck up so many times, Will,” she says. In a desperate attempt to get some kind of validation for his decision, Will calls his mother.

“It’s your decision, Will,” she says, which in mom talk means _and it was the wrong decision._ “Is he truly trying to make amends?”

“Yes,” he says, slightly defensive. “He’s really fucked up, Mom, but he’s trying.”

“Like I said,” she says. “Love doesn’t make sense.”

* * *

“You work too much,” Nico says one day as he is lying on his bed, watching Will study at the desk in Nico’s room. “That includes studying.”

“It’s called being responsible.”

“It’s called being _boring.”_

Will scoffs.

“Come here,” Nico says.

“I’m busy.”

“ _Will._ School’s almost over, and then it’s summer, and then you sell your soul to capitalism –”

“You’re so _dramatic.”_

“And you’re going to busy all the time so please take a break for now?”

“You’re such a whiner,” Will says, but he stands up and lies down next to Nico, who rests his bony chin on Will’s shoulder and works a hand up under his shirt. “A horny whiner.”

“I don’t see you complaining.”

Will smiles as Nico kisses his neck. “You’re insatiable. I’m going to fail all my exams and get kicked out of school and I’ll have to live on the street with a sign that says _my horny boyfriend made me drop out of school.”_

“Now who’s being dramatic?”

“I learned from the best.”

Nico laughs. It’s a sound that Will loves. He stretches over top of Will and kisses him gently, and Will smiles against his lips.

* * *

His summer is mostly working, because that’s all Will ever seems to do. In past summers he had crashed on Kayla’s couch when he didn’t want to commute back home, but this time Nico offers his bedroom, and that comes with many more perks than staying with Kayla ever did. The only downside to this situation is that it is much harder to convince himself to get out of bed and go to work when his bed is not a couch but an actual bed, and there is an arm wrapped around his waist and a nose buried in his hair.

Him and Nico were starting to feel almost normal. It was strange to be back anywhere near normal, and with Nico of all people, who was probably the least normal person Will had ever met (“Rude,” Nico says when Will tells him this). And yet somehow here they are, playing what some might consider to be footsie under the table at Apollo’s but what Will knows is actually more of a kicking contest.

Will smiles at Nico, and Nico smiles back.

And so that’s when he decides to text Katie.

* * *

“You look good,” she says, sitting across from him at the table at Starbucks. Will snorts.

“Thank you,” he says. Katie waits a moment and then lightly taps him with her foot.

“This is when you’re supposed to say I look good, too,” she says with a smile.

“You always look good, Katie.”

She makes a face. “I give you a six out of ten on that. Unoriginal, bad recovery, late delivery.”

“Oh, are we rating compliments now?” She laughs lightly as he throws a balled up napkin at her. After a few more moments of silence he finally says, “You can ask, you know.”

“Ask what?” She says in mock confusion. Will rolls his eyes.

“Ask what you’ve been dying to ask since you got here.”

Katie flushes, and Will gets the feeling that she had forgotten, just as he had, how well they did still know each other.

“Is it true, then? You’re dating a guy?”

He just nods. Katie considers this.

“You could have told me, you know. I wouldn’t have minded.”

Will shrugs, suddenly uncomfortable. He wants to be friends with Katie, he does, but he doesn’t think they’re ever going to be at a point where he can just _tell_ her things again.

There’s also the fact that now that he is here, with Nico, in this part of his life… he doesn’t know how to look at Katie, how to act around her, with this new revelation that he hadn’t actually really loved her at all. Well, okay, he loved her, always would, probably, but he doesn’t think he was ever _in love_ with her the way he is now, this feeling of being _full_ that he has now with Nico, and it’s not that he thinks he was empty, before, it’s that it feels like Nico has filled in the cracks Will didn’t even know were there. He didn’t complete him, but he sure as hell made him better. And that’s what Lou and Cecil and his mother didn’t understand; Nico made him better, and he’s pretty sure he makes Nico better, too. And this revelation that he was in love with Nico di Angelo is not really new, because it’s been brewing since Christmas, at least, but sitting here across from Katie Gardiner, he is struck, suddenly, by how big it is.

“I’m happy for you, Will,” she says, and he thinks she means it.

* * *

When he gets back to Nico’s he collapses on the couch beside him, puts his feet in Nico’s lap, and starts to watch Family Feud with him.

“How was lunch with your ex?”

Will thinks about this. “It could have been more awkward.”

Nico’s fingers curl around Will’s ankles. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“It’s a… thing.”

“A thing,” Nico repeats.

“I mean, yeah? Like it was awkward in a talking to your ex-girlfriend kind of way but it wasn’t, like, super awkward.”

“You are so wonderfully descriptive.”

Will smiles, but he is watching Nico out of the corner of his eye even as they turn back to the television. The words are there, simmering under his skin, on the tip of his tongue, and he almost bites his lip as if they were a physical force trying to get out.

_I love you,_ he thinks. The words weigh on him, and he considers, for a few brief seconds, opening his mouth and speaking them aloud, telling Nico the words that float in front of his eyes when he lies in bed at night, but he doesn’t know how he’d react. If he had some kind of idea, good _or_ bad, of what Nico would do, maybe he wouldn’t be as afraid, but he just didn’t know. He had gotten pretty good at reading Nico, but this was still one thing he remained in the dark about. He knows Nico is in this for more than just fun, knows that because Nico has fought for him, has crawled back into Will’s life when Will had thought he was done with him, has proven again and again that Will was something _more,_ but there still feels like there’s something between them, something Will can’t even name, let alone break down. He has no idea how to go about that.

Nico starts drawing circles on Will’s ankle, and Will decides to take it down a notch. He decides not to focus on the unknowns of it all, decides instead to focus on this, right here, the steady feel of Nico’s hands on him, the knowledge that tonight he will fall asleep beside him and wake up beside him and for now that’s enough. It’s more than enough.


	20. Maybe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what if........i did something other than work

As the summer comes to a close, Will starts working more than ever. The fact that this is the last year of his undergrad degree is hitting him hard, and the weight of the future is suddenly weighing on him more than ever. He is at work so much that his body is almost constantly in pain, and his mood is basically just as shitty. He feels bad, for Nico especially; he tends to take his mood out on him most, and although Nico says he understands Will still feels horrible every time he snaps at him.

“It’s fine,” Nico says, fingers running through Will’s hair. Will sighs and turns his head, digging his nose into Nico’s thigh as he lies in his lap. “You’re just stressed.”

“Don’t give me an excuse to be a jackass.”

“You’re not a jackass, jackass.”

“Oh thank you, that’s very helpful.”

Nico flicks his ear. “You’re not. Besides, I probably deserve it.”

“Don’t say that. You apologized. A lot. In very creative ways, I might add.”

He looks up in time to see Nico blush, and he smirks in pleasure.

“No, listen. This is how we’ll do this, okay? For the rest of the summer you can take your shitty mood out on me without feeling guilty about it. That way you can have a way to let off steam without making yourself feel worse, and it can be a kind of payback for every shitty thing I’ve done.”

“That’s not –”

“Only this summer, though. Next summer we’ll be even and you’ll just be a dick.”

Will is quiet, contemplating these words. Nico doesn’t seem to understand what he had said until Will says, “next summer?”

He can feel Nico tense under him. “I just meant –”

Will doesn’t give him a chance to take it back. Instead he shifts so he is sitting up and crawls swiftly into Nico’s lap, kissing him quiet.

Finally, he thinks, finally here was something to show that this wasn’t just in Will’s head, that this thing they had, this relationship, meant something to Nico, too. _Next summer,_ he had said, and it had slid so easily from his Nico’s mouth, as if he hadn’t even been thinking it, as if it were just something he thought, knew, was going to happen.

_I love you._ He feels it thrumming through him, under his skin, and he wants to say it, because this is proof, finally, that he is not the only one that feels whatever the hell this is.

Next summer. Which means Nico was thinking about the future. Their future. Together.

“Fine. I’ll be a bitch. But we have to go out for dinner. Your treat.”

“Why is it my treat?”

“What, I have to work my ass off and then spend it all on you?”

Nico laughs. It always makes Will laugh, too. It is beautiful in it’s rarity.

“Fine. I will pay for dinner, you cheap asshole.”

“No, no, I’m a _poor_ asshole. There’s a big difference.”

Nico rolls his eyes, but when he kisses Will, he’s smiling.

* * *

Two weeks before the start of term Will gets back to Nico’s after work and showers. He knows it’s silly to be so excited for something as innocuous as dinner, but he has worked his ass off for so long that even something as simple as dinner is something fun to look forward to. Cecil and Lou Ellen called him boring. Nico called him old.

Honestly, Will is pretty sure he’s just in love.

Just as they are getting ready to head out Nico’s phone starts going off. This isn’t anything new, since, for someone who claimed to hate human interaction, Nico just texted a hell of a lot.

“Who is it?”

“Uh, Percy,” Nico says, voice sounding strangely strained. “He needs – he’s having some problems watching Allison. He wanted to know if I could help.”

“Can he wait? You could head over after dinner.”

Nico chews his lip. “I guess,” he says.

And maybe it’s how tired he is, and maybe it’s that he feels like he’s done nothing but work this summer, and maybe it’s because it’s his last year of his undergrad and it still feels like he’s running in place, or maybe it’s the utter _reluctance_ in Nico’s voice, but something in Will snaps.

“We’re still doing dinner, right?”

“I just – I feel like I should go over and help. For Allison.”

“For Allison. This is my one night off, Nico. I’ve been working nonstop for a month. I’ve barely had time to breathe.”

“I know,” Nico says. “You’re right. Let’s go. We’ll miss our reservations.” But even as Nico starts to leave, his phone keeps going off.

And that snap turns into a break, and he thinks that maybe he understands what that wall that had still been between them was.

“You bought those tickets, didn’t you?” It comes out before he’s aware of it, before he even realizes what’s happening.

It’s not a question.

“What tickets?”

“At Christmas. For Percy. Those aquarium tickets. You said your dad gave them to you. That wasn’t true, was it?”

“No,” Nico says quietly. He doesn’t try to lie, doesn’t do anything other than quiet admittance, and that hurts Will more than anything.

“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?” It hurts coming out. Physical pain in his chest.

“Will –”

“That’s not an answer.”

Nico is beginning to look panicked. Will would be viciously pleased if it weren’t so fucking painful, to know that his panic comes from the fact that it’s true.

“It’s not what you think.”

“Then what is it?”

This is it, he thinks. This is when Nico tells him he’s wrong, that he was acting this way for totally reasonable reasons, that Will was overreacting.

But Nico doesn’t say anything, and Will knows, then, with a clarity that is so vivid it feels like he is suffocating.

“How long have you been in love with him?”

“Ten years,” is the horrible, horrible answer. Will was in no way ready for that.

Never for that.

“I never stood a chance, then,” he says, with a laugh that is almost choking him with bitterness. It is almost relieving, in a way, to know that this was doomed from the start.

“That’s not true.”

“That’s why you only ever had one night stands.”

“No – it’s not like that anymore, Will.”

He stands up to go and Nico follows him. “Please don’t go,” he says, voice wrecked with desperation.

“You’ve never wanted me. You’ve always wanted him.”

“I want you, too.”

And God, he wishes he could believe it. But he can’t keep going now. You can’t want two people, and you can’t be in love with two people. You’ll always love someone more. Will didn’t want to live his life wondering who that was, him or Percy.

And the really shitty thing was he had _liked_ Percy. He had really liked Percy, because Percy was an easy person to like. An easy person to love. So he wants to hate Percy, but he can’t, because Percy was a good guy, and he wants to hate Nico, but he can’t even really do that, because Will was in love with him.

The only person left to hate was him.

“I will not stick around and wonder for the rest of our relationship if every time we’re together you’re thinking about Percy Jackson.”

“Please don’t leave,” Nico says again.

“You know,” he says, because he is struck by the sudden desire to be mean, to hurt Nico, leave a wound even a tenth of the size Will has from him. “I get it, now. Why you always leave. It’s power, isn’t it? You always have the upper hand. You can’t get hurt. So even if some idiot falls in love with you, you’re safe.”

Nico stares. “You…”

“Yeah. How great is that.”

And it’s almost funny, that Will has wanted to tell him for so long but never could, never found the words. He has the words, now. He has the words and he flings them at Nico’s feet.

“Don’t go, Will.”

“Tell me. Tell me you love me. Or the very least that you _choose_ me. Tell me I’m not your second choice. Your back up plan. Tell me…” But he shakes his head. Nothing Nico says will be able to fix this. “No. Never mind. It won’t matter. I’ll see you around, Nico. Maybe.”

Nico stares a deer in the headlights.

“It kind of feels good,” he says. “Walking away. That must be why you do it so much.”

And then he leaves.

* * *

He makes it back to his dorm on autopilot, and when he finally gets there, Lou and Cecil are both there, a fact that makes Will very annoyed. He doesn’t want to deal with them. Doesn’t want to admit that they were right all along.

“Hey,” Cecil says, looking up from the game of Uno he was playing with Lou. “I thought you were going to dinner.”

“I broke up with Nico. Because he was in love with his best friend.” Lou and Cecil both stare at him, with open mouths, the cards still hanging from Cecil’s fingers.

“Go ahead,” Will says miserably, collapsing on the bed. “Say I told you so.” He throws an arm over his face, trying to block out the world. Trying, at the very least, to block out his friends.

“Oh, Will,” Lou says, and there is such warmth in her voice that Will can’t help the tears that well up in his eyes. He feels the bed sag beside him as Lou sits down, and she holds the hand that isn’t flung over his face. “What kind of friends do you think we are?”

“Yeah,” Cecil says. “We would never say that when you were so fragile. Give it a few weeks.”

Despite the fact that it feels like he left his heart behind in Nico’s apartment, Will laughs. “You’re an asshole, Cecil.”

There is silence, and he knows that Lou and Cecil are having one of their silent conversations about him. Finally Lou says, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“What is there to talk about?” He says. “He’s in love with Percy Jackson.”

“Who?”

“His best fucking friend. And he’s been in love with him for ten fucking years. That’s a long fucking time. That’s more than half his goddamn life.”

Lou hums slightly. “Do you want ice cream?”

Will snorts. “This isn’t a high school sitcom, Lou.”

“Do you want ice cream or not?”

He thinks. Then he removes his arm and looks up at Lou above him.

“Yeah, I want ice cream.”

* * *

Will knows that Lou and Cecil will likely wait until he is asleep to talk about this, to badmouth Nico, to get their _I told you so’_ s out of their systems, but he is immensely grateful to the way they try to help him through this post breakup. He thinks he’s in some kind of shock, and tomorrow will probably be rife with tears and a refusal to get out of bed, but right now Lou and Cecil are doing their damned best to make him feel better. Lou runs out to get ice cream and comes back with a carton of it, along with three spoons, and they set up on Cecil’s bed and Will is dealt into the Uno game.

They keep his brain occupied for hours, and despite the sensitive situation, it doesn’t stop Cecil from giving him multiple draw cards.

Will almost enjoys himself.

Eventually he is too exhausted that he can’t find the will to play Uno anymore. Lou and Cecil both try to get him to do something else, probably because they knew that once Will went to sleep, he would have to face what happened tomorrow, but all he wants to do is sleep, now.

“Thank you,” he says to the other two. Lou looks at him sadly. Will doesn’t want to face that look. He doesn’t want to face anything.

Lou uncharacteristically hugs him goodbye, which is how he knows he’s fucked. Despite the fact that she’s a very touchy person, Lou Ellen wasn’t big on hugging. She grips him tightly before she goes.

“Do you want to –”

“No,” he says, cutting Cecil off once Lou is gone. “I just want to go to bed.”

Cecil looks like he wants to say something else, but he keeps his mouth shut. They shut off the lights and Will crawls into bed, staring into the darkness, waiting for something. For tears. For sadness. For anger.

But all he feels is the same sense of numbness that he has felt since he left Nico’s apartment.

He turns over and falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahahaha pain!! everything has been ruined!!! 
> 
> anyway this will have two more chapters and like....honestly i wish i could tell you when they'll be up but i can't, if you want to complain pls send your complaints to Home Depot Canada as it is their fault for working me so much


	21. Nico di Fuckboy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry again lmao. this is so long but!!!!! oh well!!! anyway there will be one more chapter in this sucker
> 
> also i realized i kind of fucked up a bit last chapter by having them go back to the dorm even though it's summer so lets just pretend the dorms opened early???? yes???? okay

Even though the dorm has reopened Will decides to spend most of his time at home. He would like to pretend that he had a reasonable, slightly manly reason for this, but the truth of the matter is that, honestly, he just kind of wants his mom.

A few days before school starts back up she knocks lightly on his door, and when he tells her to come in she pokes her head in tentatively.

“Can we talk?”

“That’s never a good sign.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Of course, Will.”

All right. Serious talk it was, then.

His mother sits down on his bed and looks at him for a while before finally saying, “I’m worried about you.”

“You’re my mother. You’re always worried about me.”

“I’m especially worried about you.”

“You really need to stop doing this after breakups.”

“This is different. I don’t think you ever really loved Katie. And don’t get me started on the baseball bitch.”

Will almost smiles. That’s what his mother had started calling his high school girlfriend.

He wonders what she’ll start calling Nico.

“But this is different, Will, and you know it.”

“It’s not.”

“Honey. You’re never truly okay after you get your heart broken by your first love. I still remember mine. His name was Andrew Hale. I was seventeen. He rode a motorcycle. God, he was gorgeous. A total asshole, of course, but gorgeous.”

“The sperm donor wasn’t your first love?”

She gives him a stern look. “Don’t call him that, Will. But no, he wasn’t. I’ve been around.”

He groans. “Mom, Jesus, you are the literal worst at this.” But then he thinks about this. “Do you really think you can love – truly love – more than one person?”

“When Andrew Hale left, I thought I would never be whole again. That I would never love again. That my life was over at seventeen. I was always dramatic.”

Will smiles.

“And then your birth father left me, and I realized I had been wrong. Phoebus swept into my life and redefined everything I thought I knew about love, and I realized how childish I had been. How different love was as an adult, compared to a seventeen-year-old with a boyfriend who had a Mohawk.”

Will winces. “Mom.”

“I know, I know. No good decisions are made at seventeen. But Phoebus changed my world, Will. I thought there was nothing else worthwhile in this life. When he left, I felt pain like I had never felt before. It destroyed me. I don’t know, truly, what I would have done if I hadn’t found out I was having you.”

“This really isn’t helping me not hate him.”

His mother smiles. “And then I met your father. And once again, I realized I had been wrong. You asked if I believed that someone could truly love two different people. The truth is that no, I don’t. I think that once you find the one, the right one, you realize that everything else before that wasn’t truly love after all. Andrew Hale and Phoebus – they were nothing. What had felt like love, had, in fact, been nothing like love. Of course I could go into the one true love of my life, you –”

“That’s really not necessary.”

She takes his hand. “Do you remember the conversation we had over Christmas break?”

“I’ve tried my hardest to block it out.”

She pinches him lightly. “I told you that you can’t choose who you fall in love with.”

Will nods, unsure of where she’s going with this.

“I think that… honey, I have a very strange feeling that he was trying.”

“That he was trying to what?”

“Trying to choose to fall in love with you.”

He almost physically recoils. “Aren’t you supposed to be on my side?”

“I am. And I’m not trying to say that I know you better than you know yourself. I have just been around for much longer. And you might think this is just a breakup, just like with Katie, but this is different. I can just feel it. And you are so miserable, Will. More miserable than I have ever seen you.”

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

“You loved him. You love him.”

“And you loved a guy with a motorcycle and a Mohawk.”

“Did you love Katie Gardiner.”

He thinks about what he felt for Nico versus what he felt for Katie. The blandness he had felt when he was with Katie versus the energy he had always felt with Nico. The excitement. The fulfillment.

“No,” he admits.

“And I think he loves you.”

“You don’t even know him.”

“I know what you’ve told me.”

“I was a little biased.” This was not even remotely how he had imagined this conversation going. “You think he loves me even though he strung me along for almost a year?”

“Did he though.”

“Did he what?”

“Did he string you along.”

“He was in love with his best friend! What happened to you disliking him? Suddenly you’re on his side?”

“I’m not on his side,” she says with surprising ferocity. “I am always on your side. If he walked into this house right now I would string him up by his entrails.”

Will makes a face. “You need to stop watching Game of Thrones.”

“I am on your side. I am always on your side,” she repeats. “But I also think this is worth exploring. What was it you told me about Nico. About why you kept taking him back.”

Will is profoundly uncomfortable. “That he always apologizes. And he always tries.”

“This is what I know about Nico di Fuckboy –”

“Ma, please don’t try to be cool.”

“I know that up until you, all he ever did was sleep with strangers. One night only. Presumably because he was hung up over his friend. And then you came along. And he came back to you.”

“No, we kept running into each other. It was totally coincidental.”

“Did he ignore you.”

“What?”

“The times you met again. Did he ignore you.”

“I – no.”

“So this boy, who never slept with the same person more than once, let you into his life again. You gave him your number, but he was the one who texted you.”

“I tell you far too much. This is not a healthy relationship.”

“He reached out to you when he had to get that ring to Jeffrey –”

“Jason, Mom, I know you’re doing this just to annoy me. And he only did that because I have a car.”

“New York City has a taxi service, right. I’m not sure if it’s been implemented there yet.”

“Sarcasm does not look good on you.”

“Don’t you think that it would be easier to call a cab than calling you, explaining, sitting through an awkward car ride and spilling his secrets. Rich people would much rather spend money than be inconvenienced, trust me.”

“I guess.”

“That seems like an awful lot of work when he could have called a cab.”

“What is your point?” He asks, snapping a little.

“Take that tone with me again, William,” she says warningly. Will shrinks.

“Sorry,” he mutters.

“My point is that through all these things he has come to you. I know it probably feels like you have put all the effort into this relationship, but you haven’t. That’s what you told me, that he always tries.”

“I don’t –”

“You can’t choose who you fall in love with. But you can choose who you go back to. Has he texted you since the breakup.”

Will looks down at his comforter. He has a four messages on his phone that he hasn’t responded to, texts that say _Will I’m sorry_ and _Please talk to me_ and _I miss you, Will, let’s talk about this, please respond_ and _Okay. I understand. I’m sorry._ The last one had hurt so much that Will had thrown his phone under his mattress, but he could still feel it, the weight of those texts, like the Princess and the fucking Pea.

“You want me to get back with him?”

“I want you to be happy. That is all I have ever wanted. And I want you to be sure that you are making the right decision. So that when you as old as me, you have no regrets.”

“Do you have any regrets? About the sp – about my birth father?”

She cups his cheek and gives him such a warm smile that he almost wants to lay his head on her shoulder and cry. “None at all.”

“I miss him,” he says quietly, and he hates himself for it. “I know I shouldn’t, but –”

“Don’t say that. Your feelings are valid, honey. You are allowed to feel whatever you feel. If you miss him then you miss him, and there is nothing wrong with that.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Yeah. You never will. That doesn’t change when you get old.”

“Thanks.”

She leans forward to kiss him on the forehead. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he mutters, and when he goes back to his room, he takes his phone out from under the mattress.

* * *

The first few days at school pass by relatively normally, except for the fact that he isn’t feeling any better. Cecil and Lou Ellen tiptoe around him in a way that would be almost funny if it weren’t so annoying.

He is leaving work one day, bundled up in a jacket because he can’t handle any type of cold, trying to decide whether or not to text Nico (an internal battle he has been fighting for days) when he hears a voice.

“Will?”

He looks up. Nico is standing there, and Will gives him his best glare, even though his heart is threatening to beat out of his chest just at the sight of him.

“What are you doing here?” He tries to sound harsh, to sound as angry as he should be, but he doesn’t think it comes out the way he wants it to. He kind of just sounds tired.

“I told Percy I was in love with him.”

On the list of things Will wasn’t expecting, that wasn’t anywhere on it. He would have never expected Nico to seek him out after weeks of no contact, just to talk about _Percy Jackson_ once again.

“Did you come all the way here to tell me that?” Maybe Percy returned his love and they were running away together. Maybe him and Annabeth could set up a club. The jilted blonds club.

“No. Let me finish. I told Percy I was in love with him, and I realized that I wasn’t.”

“What does that mean?”

Honestly, Will has spent so much time being confused lately. It’s getting pretty tiring. 

“When I said it to him, when I told him… it felt wrong. The whole thing felt wrong. The words in my mouth were wrong. I had a crush on Percy when I was a kid but that’s all it ever was. Hero worship that faded when we actually became friends. For the longest time I wanted to be with Percy, but I knew that would never happen, so I figured I was… content to just love him and never expect anything. That’s why I always had one night stands. I could love Percy from afar. But I got so comfortable in this routine that I didn’t even realize that it wasn’t – it wasn’t real. And it faded. And I realized that when I told him I was in love with him because… it felt like _lying._ I was lying to him. I’m not in love with Percy, Will.”

“Okay. Why are you telling me?”

“Because I – I miss you.” And God, it hurts, hearing those words, and he wants to reach out to Nico, wants to kiss him, wants to tell him he forgives him even if it’s not true. His mother had been right – this was nothing like Katie, nothing like his high school girlfriend. This was pain like he had never felt, seeing Nico so close to him again. “And I’m sorry. But I was wrong and I… fuck, Will, I am _trying.”_ And that was it, wasn’t it? Nico was always trying. But what was wrong with trying? With admitting when you fuck up and doing your best to fix it? Nico always sought him out. Always tried to make things right.

God, he missed him.

“I’ve never done this before,” Nico continues. “But I don’t love Percy, I – it’s _you._ I love _you.”_

Will’s entire body reacts to those words; a visceral reaction he had never expected. Katie had said those words to him, but it had never been like this, never goosebumps erupting over his skin, butterflies in his stomach, a pounding in his ears. But he forces himself to stay calm, to try and stay in control, so he just frowns.

“I’m sorry. Really. I have tried to ignore you, I tried to push you away and ignore you and it didn’t work, and I don’t know if that was coincidence or maybe it really was goddamn _fate_ but I spent a long time trying to ignore this pull I feel towards you and I can’t. And I don’t want to anymore.”

Will hears these words as if through water. They are everything he’s wanted to hear. They are all at once too much and not nearly enough.

“You asked me to tell you that I chose you and I… I do. I have. People always tell me that I hold onto things for too long and I guess that’s true but you’re one of those things now. I chose you from the minute I spoke to you again, at the STD clinic. I’ve never done that before. Even before I told Percy I chose you. I’m just an idiot and I didn’t realize. I’m sorry that I’ve been so difficult. You don’t deserve any of this but I – I’m all in. And I know you have no reason to believe any of this but I want you to know I’m serious.”

He wants to believe him. Fuck, he wants to believe him so badly. But he has to be smarter than this. “You’ve fucked up twice and I’ve forgiven you both times. Why should I do it again?”

“You shouldn’t. Half of me doesn’t expect you to, but I still have to ask. I still have to try.”

Will starts throwing his keys from hand to hand. It was so tempting. He could forget all of this. Things could go back to normal.

Except would they ever be normal again?

“What did he say?”

“What did who say?”

“Percy. What did Percy say when you told him you were in love with him?”

“Oh. He, um. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have a chance.”

This surprises him. “Why?”

“Because as soon as I realized it wasn’t true I left to go find you.”

Will stares at him. This he hadn’t expected. To come first.

“You’re being serious.”

Nico just nods.

“Tell me again.”

“Tell you what?”

“Tell me that you love me. Make me believe you.” Maybe he’s being mean. Maybe he’s being cruel, or petty, but he needs to believe it, more than he has ever needed to believe anything.

“I love you,” Nico says, and it is quiet but it is also the loudest thing Will has ever heard. It reverberates around his head. He doesn’t say it with any sort of emphasis, doesn’t try and oversell it, doesn’t try to put anything else in. It is simple in its truthfulness, and that makes it perfect.

Will smiles, then, smiles because relief is spreading through him so quickly that it is almost dizzying. And God, maybe he’s an idiot, maybe he’s stupid to do this again, to forgive and forgive and forgive, but the thing is he believes Nico, believes every word he says, believes the anxious look on his face as he waits for Will to answer him.

Maybe he’s an idiot. Maybe he’s in love. Who knows.

“I believe you.” Nico seems to deflate in relief. “But you’re officially on probation.”

“What does that entail?”

“I haven’t exactly decided yet,” he says, “But I’ll keep you updated.”

Nico smiles. It is small and hesitant, but it’s there, and Will wants to kiss it more than he has ever wanted anything.

“Do you want a ride home?”

And maybe this is part of the probation, or maybe this is just Will’s own personal revenge, but he doesn’t kiss him yet. He doesn’t kiss him in the car, he doesn’t kiss him when they get to the apartment complex, he doesn’t even kiss him in the elevator. He watches the way Nico keeps casting furtive glances at him, waiting, and he can’t help but enjoy it, the tiniest bit.

When they finally get into Nico’s apartment, he looks at Will nervously. “So do you want to talk?” He asks.

Will grins at him. He can’t hold out any longer. So he says “Not really,” and then he steps forward and takes Nico’s face in his hands and kisses him.

It is a kiss like Will has never had. It sets him on fire. Nico grips him tightly, as if afraid if he lets go, this will stop being real. Will pushes him back towards the bedroom, because he is wasting no time, now that he has Nico again, and they fall onto the bed together. Will kisses him the way he has never kissed anyone, and it is better than anything else. Better than every good thing, every other kiss.

And then someone knocks on the door.

“Don’t get it,” he says, but when has Nico ever fucking listened to anyone?

Once Nico leaves Will finger combs his hair to try and make it look slightly less mussed up and sticks his head out the door. “Who is it?”

He can practically feel the blood draining from his face when he sees Percy. “Oh.”

“I need to talk to you,” Percy says angrily, pointing at Nico, and Will takes that as his cue to duck back inside the room. He closes the door but leaves it open a crack in order to eavesdrop in on the situation. He is worried about what might happen – worried about what Percy will say, if he’ll be angry at Nico, how Nico will react. He has no idea what Percy is planning to say. No idea what he’s angry about.

As it turns out, he had nothing to be worried about. Percy Jackson once again proves that he was as good a guy as Will had always suspected when the big huge fight is about the fact that Nico had been afraid their friendship would end if he admitted the truth. Apparently this had offended Percy a great deal. Will listens to their heart to heart with a little bit of jealousy.

He has a funny feeling he’s going to be feeling that a lot around Percy. It’s just something he’s going to have to deal with. He just thinks of Nico and the simple way he had said _I love you._ As if there were nothing more true in the world.

“Solace!” He suddenly hears. He sticks his head out to find Percy looking at him.

“Hi,” he says nervously.

“When I was in high school I learned how to sword fight,” he says. Will isn’t sure what he’s supposed to say to this.

“Um. Okay?”

“I’m just… warning you.”

“Jesus Christ, Percy,” Nico mutters.

Percy smiles. “I’m just joking. Or am I?”

“ _Goodbye, Percy,”_ Nico says with emphasis, and Percy waves at them before leaving. Will isn’t sure how to feel about the fact that his life was just threatened.

“That was stressful,” Nico says.

“You weren’t just _threatened.”_

“Percy’s harmless,” Nico says, and sure, Will believes him, but he still just smiles.

“I’m sleeping with one eye open tonight.”

Nico grabs him and drags him back to the room, and Will follows happily. They don’t have sex, just crawl into bed and Nico tucks himself into Will’s chest. Will can feel him taking deep breaths. It is a comforting feeling, feeling him breathe against him.

He doesn’t know what’s going to happen next. Probably fucking anything, with the history they’ve had. Maybe life with Nico was never going to be simple.

With Nico against him and the greatest kiss he’s ever had still tingling on his lips, Will thinks he can probably live with that.


	22. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an explanation:
> 
> sometimes life gets in the way
> 
> this was updated last october. since then i have graduated university, my parents have gotten divorced, and i have moved in to a new house with my father and his new girlfriend. i have two new brothers who are both under the age of thirteen. things are completely, drastically different. i have not had time, energy, or will to write much of anything. 
> 
> i'm ending this series here. i might pick it up again later once i begin to really enjoy it again, but for now it's going on the back burner. for eight months it has been in the back of my head, constantly, weighing on me, the knowledge that i haven't updated in so long. it's become a job, a source of stress. so i'm putting it away. 
> 
> by all means, still come to my tumblr, @aravenlikeawritingdesk and send me headcanons, or questions, or just to talk. any prompt that has been sent before today (july 17) i will do my best to still answer. but any prompt sent from here on out will be politely pushed to the side. i want to get back to a point where i can love writing about these characters again.
> 
> thank you to all of you who have read, reviewed, given me kudos, sent me a message. i know this is like, the most dramatic fucking author's note ever lmao i'm sorry so i'm putting it at the beginning so it's not the last goddamn thing you read of this series. i'm sorry if this chapter is not up to standards but it was honestly like pulling teeth trying to put it into words. i love all of you! and i am sorry.

Nico is quiet.

Nico is very quiet. And it isn’t that Nico is usually a chatterbox, but Will has gotten pretty good at identifying Nico’s silences. There’s his moody silences, his tired silences, his content silences, his anger silences. This was none of those.

This was a scared silence.

“Nico.”

Nico gives him a smile that doesn’t even remotely reach his eyes. “I’m just worried about the car. One of these days it won’t finish this drive.”

“Nico.”

Nico sighs and slumps against the window. “She’s gonna hate me.”

“She isn’t going to hate you. She doesn’t hate you.”

“She definitely hates me.”

“Come on, Nico, you’re being ridiculous.”

“She has every reason to hate me.”

Will lets out an irritated noise. “You’re really starting to annoy me, you know.”

“Probably runs in the family.”

Will doesn’t respond to this, just turns the music up a bit louder. He knows he should be more understanding, that Nico was really struggling with this, that he was nervous, that it was his first time doing anything like this, but honestly, he’s pretty fucking stressed, too.

* * *

“I want you to meet Nico.”

He wasn’t sure what he expected his mother to do. What she ended up doing was calmly finishing the bite of macaroni salad and then saying, “Okay.”

“Is that it? Okay?”

“Should there be something else.”

“I don’t know. I thought you might be more… reluctant.”

His mother raises an eyebrow. “You have been dating for two years.”

Will doesn’t honestly know what to make of this. He had expected his mother to have stronger opinions on Nico, due to all that had happened. Cecil and Lou Ellen certainly had, and it had taken a lot to get them to change their minds.

Cecil and Lou Ellen hadn’t exactly jumped on the ‘let’s forgive Nico for being a douche’ train, not that Will – or Nico, for that matter – could particularly blame them. But the problem with Cecil and Lou Ellen is that they never did anything quietly. Which meant a whole lot of lashing out at Nico; glares, snarky retorts, sarcastic comments. Will tried to keep them away from each other as much as he could, but it was hard to keep your best friends away from the guy you were dating.

But Nico had taken it like a champ; he hadn’t fought back. Will knew he was taking it because he felt he deserved it. Even after Will had forgiven Nico, Nico still hadn’t forgiven himself. He tried to get Cecil and Lou to stop, but the more Nico took the abuse, the more Lou and Cecil seemed to dish it out. He found out later Nico’s quiet acceptance only made them angrier, as if he didn’t care that his boyfriend’s two best friends hated him. Nico had told Will it was fine, that he could handle it, that he had handled far worse than a couple of protective friends, to let them get it out of their system.

Jason and Hazel had not had the same idea.

Granted, there were not many times when they were all together. Will made sure of that. But the few times they were consisted mostly of Lou and Cecil making snarky comments and Jason and Hazel biting back. This had caused Will so much stress that eventually Nico had snapped; _enough, Hazel,_ he had said, and it was then, and only then, that his idiotic, stubborn friends realized that what Will had been saying all along was correct. Nico wasn’t cold; Nico was making amends.

He knew his friends were just being protective. He knows that they know, better even then Nico did, how bad he was when they had broken up. And even if he didn’t like it, he knew that Nico had to make his amends to them, just like he had to Will. But that didn’t stop him from being immensely relieved when Lou and Cecil finally lay off. Actually, in an unexpected turn of events, Lou and Hazel had hit it off after that. So now that Will’s boyfriend and his friends were back on good terms, he had one last fight to fight. And this one was way scarier than the grudges held by Cecil and Lou Ellen.

“Yeah, I know. But it… it didn’t always go that great, if you recall.”

The look Naomi gives him lets him know quite clearly that she remembers. It would probably be hard to forget your only child telling you in the span of two minutes that not only was he bi, but he had slept with a guy, and now he was probably in love with said guy in question, and also that the guy was ignoring him. It was a pretty memorable conversation.

“I recall. If _you_ recall, I was also the one who told you to give it another chance.”

This is true. His mother had been the one who told him that maybe Nico loved him, far more than either of them actually knew. But Will knew his mother well enough that he knew that just because his mother always wanted what was best for him, didn’t mean she necessarily liked it.

“You want me to meet your boyfriend. He is a big part of your life. I would like to finally meet the person who has had such an impact on you.”

“I just… are you… I mean…”

“He wants to know if you’re going to be scary, dear.”

He stares at his father in disbelief. “I – that’s not true.”

Naomi smiles down into her macaroni salad. “I will be on my best behaviour, Will.”

Will doesn’t know how to say that he doesn’t just want her to be on her best behaviour. He wants – no, he needs his mother to like Nico. He needs her to approve of him. It had been hard, so hard, when Lou and Cecil had been at odds with him, and it would be so much worse if it were his mother. He knew that once someone got to know Nico, it was easy to love him. The issue is Nico made it so, so difficult to get to know him. Will already had that going against this meeting – he didn’t need his mother being closed minded making it any worse.

After dinner, as Naomi clears the table, his father pats his hand. “I’m excited to meet your boyfriend, Will. Don’t worry about your mother. All she has ever wanted was for you to be happy.”

Will bites his lip. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Is there a reason I’m cleaning up all by myself in here.” His mother calls from the kitchen. He and his father exchange a smile.

“Hey, I cooked,” his dad says, holding his hands up. Will rolls his eyes and gets up to help his mother tidy up.

* * *

That had been a few weeks ago. It had taken a little while to convince Nico, but Will had expected that. Nico was difficult on the best of times.

But he had given in. Will knew how much that meant. He knew how reluctant Nico was for – well, most things, really, but especially stuff like this. Couple things. Things that Will never would have expected Nico to be able to do at the beginning of all this. He knows that this, of all things, just goes to show how much Nico truly does love him.

And now they were here. Will couldn’t risk looking over at Nico much, given the fact that he was driving, but he could feel Nico’s tenseness, the way he curled in on himself, staring out the window.

“She isn’t going to hate you. She knows how much you mean to me.”

Nico makes a noncommittal noise. Will sighs and tightens his grip on the steering wheel.

It was going to be a long day.

* * *

Will hadn’t known what to expect. He had no idea how his mother was going to react, how Nico was going to react. The logical part of him knows it likely won’t be nearly as painful as he thinks it’ll be. The irrational part of his brain envisions his mother trying to hug Nico in retaliation for the break-up and Nico getting so stressed out he kneed his mother in the stomach and ran back to New York.

Like he said, it was irrational.

It isn’t until he gets to the house that he realizes something else. He had been so worried about Nico meeting his mother that he hadn’t even thought about what his house would look like to Nico. Christ, Nico’s apartment with Jason was almost as big as his house. Will had never had a lot of money, and he was okay with that, and he had never felt like he was missing out on anything. But he knew that Nico (or, as Nico would say, his father) was rich, and even though Nico didn’t act like it, he couldn’t help but wonder what Nico saw when he saw Will’s home.

“It’s not exactly,” he starts, wondering why he feels the need to defend himself but doing it anyway, but Nico must sense what he’s feeling and he shoots him a smile that, despite it’s tentativeness, makes Will feel immediately better. He kisses Nico quickly before they get out of the car. He tries not to get upset that Nico’s hands are shoved into his pockets so that Will can’t hold one. Will knew how hard this was for Nico, and how much it meant that he was here. Realistically, this was probably more stressful for Nico then it was for him.

But his heart is threatening to beat out of his chest and he struggles to get his keys in the lock of the front door before realizing that it was probably open.

It was.

“Ma? Dad?” Maybe they weren’t here. Maybe they could do this another day.

No such luck. His father comes hurrying out of the kitchen wearing, to Will’s utter horror, an apron that says “Check Out My Buns.”

“Will! You’re early. I’m not done dinner. Your mother has just gone out to pick up some more bread.”

“Dad,” Will says, shooting a meaningful look at the apron. His father looks done and grins.

“I said you were early. You must be Anthony,” his dad says, sticking his hand out. Nico looks confused.

“Nico,” he says, unsure.

“Right,” his father says. “Anthony was the one last week, right?” He winks at Nico. Will groans.

“Dad. Really?”

“Let me have my fun. Go into the living room until your mother gets home. She shouldn’t be long.”

As his father heads back into the kitchen, Will takes a glance at Nico, who, to his utter disbelief, is smiling.

“How much do you want to bet my dad googled ‘bad dad jokes’ before we got here?”

“I like it,” Nico says. “He’s fun.”

“He’s an idiot,” Will mutters, but he’s glad that at the very least his father was doing everything he could to make Nico comfortable.

On that note, they take a seat on the couch and wait for Will’s mother to get home. Will sits down and Nico sits a respectable distance away from him, and Will turns on some show on HGTV about couples redoing their houses.

By the time his mother gets home, Nico and Will are both staring in horror at the television, while his father is yelling and gesticulating wildly.

“Alan,” his mother says. “Shouldn’t you be cooking.”

“Naomi, darling, look at this house, they have _carpet_ in their _kitchen.”_

Naomi raises an eyebrow. “I think something’s burning.”

His father shoots another look at the television before heading back into the kitchen. Will feels a strong surge of appreciation towards him. His father was not normally this expressive; he has a feeling he was doing this solely in an attempt to make Nico feel more comfortable, and Will loves him for it.

“Nico,” his mother says, walking over to them and sticking out her hand. “I’m Will’s mom.”

Nico shakes her hand tentatively. “Hello, Mrs. Solace.”

His mother makes a face. “Lord, child, don’t do that. Naomi is fine.”

Nico looks like this is the absolute last thing in the world that he would be comfortable doing, but he nods anyway. And then the thing that Will had been dreading the most began – the Mom Interrogation.

“So, Nico,” she begins. “What are your majoring in?”

And so it begins. Nico answers question after question like a champ, and he only stumbles on a few of them – what about your parents, do you have any siblings, stuff like that. Will watches the whole exchange on guard, waiting to swoop in if he needs to, in case one of his mother’s questions ends up being _and why did you ignore my son after you two had sex?_ But his mother is on her best behaviour, and eventually Will starts to relax the tiniest amount.

By the time dinner is ready Will isn’t quite as tightly wound, and Nico seems slightly less likely to bolt at the earliest convenience. As they start eating, Will watches as Nico’s eyes get steadily wider and wider.

“Oh my God,” he mutters. “This is the greatest thing I’ve ever eaten.”

“I told you,” Will says smugly.

“No, Will, you don’t understand.”

“I think I might.”

Nico takes another bite and looks at Will’s father. “This is amazing,” he says in awe. Will’s dad smiles.

“I’m glad you like it,” he says, winking at Will.

Nico finishes off his plate and the rest of Will’s, with a look that says he clearly thinks Will is some kind of heathen for not finishing. After dinner Will and Nico tidy up the kitchen while his parents take their usual glass of wine in the family room, and Nico keeps flicking soap suds at him.  Will eventually smears soap all over Nico’s nose and then says, as Nico is wiping it off, “Thank you for doing this.”

Nico gives a half hearted shrug and doesn’t meet Will’s eyes. “It wasn’t so bad.”

“I know it was hard. I really appreciate that you did it.”

Another shrug. “I’d do much more then that for you, you know.”

Will grins. “That was so sappy.”

Nico flicks some more soap suds at him. “Shut up. We’re having a genuine romantic moment. I just met your fucking parents. Don’t ruin it.”

Will kisses him. Nico kisses him back, although Will is willing to bet money on the fact that he is keeping his eyes on the doorway in case either of Will’s parents come in. “I love you,” Will mutters. Nico drags his eyes away from the doorway long enough to smile at him.

“That was sappy,” he says, in a poor mockery of Will’s voice.

Will scoops up a handful of soap and dumps it all over Nico’s head. Nico laughs and smears some in Will’s face, and the two continue this until they hear someone clearing their throat. They both turn sheepishly towards the doorway of the kitchen, where Will’s mother is standing with her arms crossed.

“You’re both grounded,” she says. Will stifles a laugh.

“You can’t ground Nico, he’s not your son,” he objects. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Nico hiding a smile behind his hand, soap dripping down the back of his neck.

“Watch me,” his mother says. But Will can see the glint in her eyes, and in that moment he loves them all so fiercely, his mother with her fake scowl, his father’s quiet acceptance of everything Will was, and the boy next to him, whose hair is starting to curl at the neck from the moisture of the soap. Will wants to run his fingers through it, so he does, and Nico starts a little bit, but he relaxes under the touch, and Will’s mother just smiles.

“You might as well come watch _Family Feud_ with us, if you’re just going to make a bigger mess,” his mother says, and he can see the slow spread of Nico’s grin at the sound of his stupid show. His mother turns back and Will goes to follow her, but Nico grabs his hand first and drags him back.

“Love you,” he mutters, kissing Will quickly, before following Naomi out into the living room. Will watches him, heart feeling three sizes bigger then usual, and when he sits down next to him he threads their fingers together.

Nico lets him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's literally 100,000 words in this series and i have been able to expertly dodge ever answering what the fuck nico is majoring in each time it comes up lmfao 
> 
> anyway uh.......that's all folks


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